Every piece at āsmi london begins with a person, a skill, and a tradition that in many cases stretches back centuries. There are no factories behind any of these objects. No machines. No digital shortcuts. What you see when you hold an āsmi london piece is the accumulated knowledge of a community — passed from hand to hand, generation to generation, and carried into the present by artisans who still make things the way they have always been made.
This is a guide to those traditions. To the crafts behind the objects, the communities behind the crafts, and the reasons why what you bring into your home from āsmi london is genuinely different from anything made at scale.
Hand Block Printing — Bedsheets and Bedspreads
Block printing is one of India's oldest textile traditions, and it remains, at its finest, entirely dependent on the human hand.
At āsmi london, every printed bedsheet and bedspread is hand block printed — not machine printed. The distinction matters more than it might seem. When a pattern is applied by hand, the wooden block is pressed into natural dye and transferred to fabric by a person feeling the resistance of the cloth, adjusting the pressure, reading the surface. The result carries something a machine cannot replicate: the faintest evidence of the hand that made it. Lines that are not rigid. Slight variations in colour and placement that make each length of cloth subtly unique.
If you look closely at an āsmi london block-printed bedsheet and notice that the repeat is not mathematically perfect — that is not a flaw. That is the signature of handcraft. That is what you are buying.
The cotton is sourced for quality. The bedspreads use 100% surgical cotton filling — not polyester, not synthetic blend — because the commitment to what goes inside a piece is as important as what is visible on the surface.
View collection here: https://asmilondon.com/collections/bedsheets and https://asmilondon.com/collections/bedspread
Jute Weaving — Table Runners and Table Mats
āsmi london's table runners and table mats are handwoven from jute by a small artisan group based in Delhi. The craft itself — the weaving of natural fibres into functional textile — is ancient. The community behind it is remarkable.
The women who make these runners have come through experiences of domestic violence. Many have survived circumstances that left them without income, without independence, and in some cases without safety. Through a programme that provides training, community, and dignified work, they have learned to weave. And what they make is genuinely beautiful.
Each runner is a unique object. Because it is woven by hand — the shuttle passing back and forth, the warp and weft built thread by thread — no two products are exactly alike. Jute itself is naturally resistant to stains, remarkably easy to maintain, and 100% biodegradable. Its low carbon footprint aligns with the broader principle that what enters your home should be as kind to the world as it is to the space it occupies.
When you lay an āsmi london table runner for a dinner — the Midnight Bloom, the Olive Vine, the Wild Blossom, the Ivory Leaf, the Rose Bloom — you are not just dressing a table. You are part of a story of women weaving their way to a better future.
View full collection here: https://asmilondon.com/collections/table-runners and https://asmilondon.com/collections/table-mats
Appliqué — Cushion Covers, Tote Bags, and Children's Pieces
Appliqué is the craft of cutting fabric shapes and stitching them onto a background — a deceptively simple description of a technique that, at its most skilled, produces extraordinary results.
At āsmi london, the appliqué work on cushion covers, tote bags, and children's pieces is done by women from marginalised communities, working within a fully women-run foundation. These women are trained in the craft, employed with dignity, and paid fairly. The tote bags they produce — the Aunt Dori, the Daisy, the Sweetheart Tote — are hand-stitched, quilted from layers of block-printed cotton, and constructed well enough to carry a laptop. Every stitch placed by hand. No machine that could replicate the decision about where each fabric piece sits, how it folds, what it says when it is finished.
The children's collection — hand-appliquéd cushion covers and soft toys — comes from the same hands. The same community of women who make a tote bag also make a cushion of a
tiger, a cat, a pigeon, a rooster. The care in those children's pieces is identical to the care in every other piece they make. It is not a different quality for a smaller recipient — it is the same standard throughout.
Hand Embroidery — The Crafts Within the Craft
āsmi london's cushion cover collection draws on several distinct Indian embroidery traditions, each with its own history, geography, and character.
Zardozi is one of the most ancient and opulent embroidery forms in the world — originating in Persia and brought to India during the Mughal era, where it was elevated into an imperial art form. The name comes from the Persian words for gold (zar) and sewing (dozi): golden embroidery. Traditional Zardozi uses real gold and silver thread, along with beads, sequins, and in the most elaborate work, semi-precious stones. They are, in the most literal sense, Mughal heritage.
Suzani is a quilting and embroidery tradition from Bihar, in eastern India — specifically associated with the Muzaffarpur district. Historically made by women using layers of old saris stitched together and embroidered with simple running stitches, Suzani was used to document everyday life: harvests, festivals, weddings, the rhythms of the seasons. It was a form of visual storytelling passed between women. Contemporary Suzani at āsmi london honours that tradition — the running stitch, the layered cloth, the narrative impulse — while bringing it into a modern British home context.
Hand embroidery — the broader category — encompasses suzani-inspired work, floral embroidery, folk motifs, and the kind of freestyle surface decoration that requires a skilled embroiderer to hold the design entirely in their head and hands, working without a template. Pieces like the Rosewood Charm, the Ruby Suzani, and the Mediterranean Bloom are all produced by hand in this tradition.
Reversible cushion covers, available in āsmi london's made-to-order collection, offer contrasting jacquard fabric on each side — a practical expression of the brand's commitment to mindful buying. The idea is simple: one cushion, two personalities, a room refreshed without over-purchasing.
Gond Paintings — Tribal Art from Madhya Pradesh
Gond is one of India's largest and most celebrated tribal communities, and Gond painting is their visual language — a tradition of depicting the natural world, the spirit world, and the rhythms of daily life in intricate patterns of colour and line.
āsmi london works with Gond artists from Madhya Pradesh — tribal artisans who have inherited this tradition from their families and who produce entirely original, signed paintings. Every painting on the āsmi london site is hand painted. There are no digital reproductions, no prints, no machine-made copies. What you receive is the only one of its kind, with the artist's signature on the side.
The subjects of Gond painting — birds in trees, fish in water, the tree of life, animals moving through a forest — are not chosen arbitrarily. In Gond tradition, the natural world is sacred and interconnected. Each creature, each tree, each river carries significance. The intricate filling of forms — the patterns within patterns that characterise Gond art — reflects a worldview in which every part of the natural world deserves to be looked at closely.
From the Bird on the Wire to the Eternal Tree of Life to Blue Bayou, each painting is a direct, unmediated connection to an artist whose community has been making art this way for centuries.
Dhokra — The 4,000-Year-Old Lost-Wax Tradition
Dhokra is among the oldest metal-casting traditions in the world, practised by tribal artisan communities using a technique — lost-wax casting, or cire perdue — that has remained essentially unchanged for four millennia.
A Dhokra piece begins with a clay core. Beeswax is rolled into threads and wound around the core, forming the design by hand — every line placed deliberately, every detail sculpted with the fingers. The piece is then encased in clay and fired. The wax melts away and molten brass is poured in, filling every groove. The clay is cracked open to reveal a piece that is unique in the world — because the mould no longer exists.
āsmi london works directly with tribal Dhokra artisans. Many pieces take up to a month to complete, dependent on the weather, the drying process, and the conditions of the firing. Browse the full Dhokra collection — from the Dhokra Peacock Candle Stand (£29) and Dhokra Turtle Figurine (£30) to the Dhokra Tribal Ladies Reading on Charpai (£40) and the Dhokra Mana Set of 4 (£70).
The slight roughness of the surface, the warmth of the metal, the irregularities that speak of a human process — these are not imperfections. They are what Dhokra is.
View full collection here: https://asmilondon.com/collections/dhokra-pieces
The Gadia Lohars — Nomadic Brass Craftsmanship
The Gadia Lohars are a nomadic metalworking community rooted in Rajasthan, carrying one of India's most distinctive brass-working traditions.
Their craft begins not with new metal but with old. Used brass utensils — lotas, pots, vessels — are collected from households, gently heated, and reshaped by hand into something entirely new. Every silhouette is cut with iron chisels. Every curve is guided by skill, not machinery. The etching that decorates the finished surface is done freehand, using hammers and anvils that in many cases are centuries old.
āsmi london's Brass Bird Tealight Holder (Set of 2, £19) and Brass Lotus Tealight Holder (£19) are made by Gadia Lohar artisans. The process of recycling old brass into new objects is not a design decision — it is how the Gadia Lohars have always worked, a form of material continuity that is both ancient and, by any modern measure, sustainable.
Pattachitra — Sacred Scroll Painting from Odisha
Pattachitra — from the Sanskrit patta (cloth) and chitra (picture) — is a traditional cloth-based painting form originating in Odisha, one of the oldest surviving artistic traditions in India.
Originally created on cloth or palm leaves, Pattachitra was used to depict stories from Hindu mythology — the Jagannath tradition, scenes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, stories of Vishnu and Krishna. The style is instantly recognisable: bold outlines, rich natural colours, intricate borders, figures rendered in a stylised but highly expressive manner.
At āsmi london, Pattachitra artists bring this tradition to the Ananta Tales collection — the hand-painted copper glasses (£45, set of 2) and the Santhal Stories Wooden Coasters (£45, set of 4). Each piece carries the visual language of this ancient form into a contemporary context. A copper glass hand-painted by a Pattachitra artist is not a souvenir of Indian culture — it is Indian culture, alive, in use, at your table.
Clay Birds — Handcrafted in Gujarat
āsmi london's ceramic bird pairs are made from locally sourced clay in Gujarat, fired in kilns, and hand-painted by artisans who bring extraordinary naturalistic detail to each bird. The brass wire used for the legs and feet gives each bird a quiet liveliness — the suggestion of being about to take flight, or having just landed. Each pair is unique: the hand-painting means that no two are exactly alike.
The collection includes the House Sparrow (£30), the Tailor Bird (£30), the Scarlet Drummer (£45), the Green Jewel Bird (£45), and the Indian Parakeet (£60) — each celebrating a specific bird of the Indian subcontinent with an attention to detail that nature lovers will immediately recognise.
Incense collection — From Temple Flowers to Your Home
Every year, millions of kilograms of flowers are offered at temples across India. Laden with pesticides from commercial cultivation, they were historically dumped into sacred rivers — including the Ganges — where they leached toxins into the water and contributed to serious environmental harm.
Phool was founded to solve this problem through a process they call flowercycling. The flowers are collected from temples daily across five temple towns of India, processed by women from marginalised communities — many of them previously employed in manual scavenging, one of the most hazardous and stigmatised forms of labour — and handcrafted into incense sticks, incense cones, and havan cups.
The result is a product category unlike anything available from conventional incense brands. Phool is India's first D2C wellness brand to receive the Fair for Life Fairtrade and Ecocert Organic & Natural certifications. The incense is charcoal-free, bamboo-free (in the bambooless range), and made entirely from natural botanical ingredients. Over 300 women are employed full-time, and over 11 tons of floral waste is converted daily.
At āsmi london, the Phool incense range includes bambooless incense sticks in Ayodhya Sandalwood (£11), Lemongrass (£11), Oudh (£11), and Tulsi (£11), alongside natural incense sticks in Eucalyptus (£9), White Cedar (£9), and Patchouli (£9), as well as Sandalwood Havan Cups (£18.95, 16 pieces) and Sambrani Havan Cups (£18.95, 16 pieces).
When you light a Phool incense stick, the fragrance in your home has come — literally — from the flowers offered to gods in Indian temples. There is no story in home fragrance that comes close to that one.
What Connects Every Craft
The traditions above come from different regions of India, different communities, different material processes, and different cultural contexts. What connects them is simpler than any of that: every one of them was made by a person, for a reason, within a tradition that deserves to continue.
At āsmi london, the commitment is to source directly, pay fairly, and bring these crafts to a British audience that is ready for objects with this kind of depth behind them. No factories. No machines. No replication.
The piece you choose will be the only one of its kind in the world. That is not a marketing claim. It is simply what handcraft means.
Explore the full collection at asmilondon.com
No factories. No machines. Ever.