Visiting Faculties
Students at The Handloom School are mentored by practicing handloom textile designers, educationists, handloom marketers, academicians, first generation entrepreneurs and traditional master weavers. The School has a mix of both fulltime and visiting faculty to ensure best and most relevant training to the students.
Design Faculty
Rekha Bhatia
Rekha Bhatia is a trained textile designer from Rhode Island School of Design in the USA. For many years she has designed and sold her own hand-woven products through her companies, Mosaic and Kishmish Clothing. She teaches student’s "Colour Theory".
Hema Shroff Patel
Hema Shroff Patel was born in the US and has lived in Mumbai since 1990. She is passionate about India’s rich textile heritage and has a label called "Amba Weave", which is an expression of this. Her journey in the preservation and resurrection of textile traditions began in late 1991. She consults for REHWA Society, Maheshwar, on a semi-regular basis.
Geeta Patil
A graduate of NID, Geeta has been WomenWeave’s chief designer for over a decade. She conducts a two-week weaver designer workshop with the students of The Handloom School. This workshop is aimed at giving the students a first-hand experience of the practical design process and has them develop their own designs which on one hand is deeply rooted in their weaving tradition, and on the other is also relevant in today’s market landscape.
Shampa Saxena
Shampa is a young textile design graduate from Shristi School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore. She teaches two month-long courses at The Handloom School – a “Designing on Multi-treadle” course, and an “Advanced Weaving Techniques & Cloth Analysis” course.
Deepika Ranawat
Ms. Deepika Ranawat, the present Technical Superintendent (Processing) of WSC Indore, and teaches “Dyeing Theory and Practical” course.
Elana Dickson
Elana Dickson is a graduate of the Royal College of Arts, London and has worked for many famous textile houses: amongst them Jack Larsen in the USA and Manual Canovas in Paris. She is also a member of the board of WomenWeave, and members of the advisory committee of The Handloom School.
Fatima Radiowala
Fatima is a young design graduate from National Institute of Fashion Technology, Bhopal. She is presently engaged as a Design & Production Coordinator at WomenWeave for the "Gudi Mudi" project. She teaches "Natural Dyeing" and "Design 101" courses at The Handloom School, and also acts as a design mentor in the "Weaver-Designer Workshop" module of the course.
Business Management
Aditi Shah Aman
Aditi Shah Aman is a Design professional trained at NID, and a Social-Eco Entrepreneur. She is the founder of Rare Earth Designs, a social-eco enterprise that designs and markets Artisan products. She was formerly a Consultant to Artisan Organisations for Design Development, Organization Development, Business Development and Fair-trade practices. She was also the first CEO of Chenetha Colour Weaves, a Handloom weaver community owned social enterprise popularly known as “Karghaa”, and responsible for setting up its business operations.
Jitendra Kumar
Jitendra, is a textile designer by training and is founder of Loom to Luxury. Loom to luxury is based out of Varanasi and produces excellent handwoven yardages, scarves and saris for global markets. Jitendra brings with him wonderful experience of an entrepreneur who has worked very closely in the field handloom textiles with NEST.
Feruzan Mehta
Feruzan Mehta has been an educator since 1985, going on to specialize in curriculum development and teacher training, for mainstream schools and those in marginalized communities, including a school for handloom weavers' children. Feruzan's specific interest in peace education began in the aftermath of the 1992-'93 communal riots in India. She is currently the Founder & Executive Director of "The Peace Project". Feruzan was key to the development of the unique curriculum of the School. Since the first batch of the School, she has also been evaluating individual students after the completion of the on-campus segment.
Communication, Technology & Presentation
David Goldsmith
David Goldsmith is a PhD from the Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, Sweden and Associate Professor at the prestigious Parsons The New School for Design, New York. David teaches business English to the students of The Handloom School, and is a trained, qualified teacher in ESL (English as a Second Language).
Neelima Rao
Neelima Rao, a graduate from NID, is the Creative Director at Adhya Designs and works with multiple craft groups across the country as an educator and advisor in traditional crafts. She welds modern design aesthetics with the Indian craft tradition to create products. She has worked with the Devi Design Studio, Maspar group amongst others and has close to two decades of experience.
Nivedita Rai
Nivedita is a graduate from IRMA and is the Executive Director of WomenWeave's flagship "Gudi Mudi Khadi" project. Nivedita's passion for handloom and handicraft is only rivaled by the strength of her belief that agriculture and handloom are the two bastions of rural self employment. Nivedita teaches the "Basics of Marketing" and "Information Technology for Business" modules at the School.
