Meet the Sheroes - Rashmi Singh

She runs a platform where - Skill Meets Design and Art Meets Style, in her own words, Moya is part of her being. Everybody who has ever started something has a story to tell, a story about what they learnt through the journey and how they were inspired, 

Let's see what Rashmi Singh, the founder of Moya has to share with us today!

What line of work are you in? 

I run Moya a space that deals in creative products of all kinds.

What made you enter this field of work?

Moya is my dream, my passion which was lost somewhere while pursuing the so called standards of success and achievement. There are always two sides of a coin, in the career world where success is mostly defined by the heavy packages we draw, I define my success in taking the road less travelled and followed what my inner passion was driving me to. I am “A one woman army”, I handle everything , with one amazingly supportive partner and few bunch of co-operative people who have helped me to get things done.

Though I have launched Moya quite recently, I have been working on it since a long time, during my travels and otherwise in my research, readings etc. not really knowing that it would help so much. I met a lot of craft clusters, NGOs and self help groups. Working with Crafts is a journey, understanding the soul of it, the skill of the Artisan, and then comes the difficult task of convincing the Artisan to do something different yet maintain the soul of the Art. I did'nt want to do the usual, which everybody was doing, I wanted to innovate sustainability itself by adding uniqueness to it. And as I say Moya is a platform Where - Skill meets Design and Art meets Style.

What have your past work experiences taught you 

Coming from a place where the word Fashion was synonymous to being sparsely clothed and a family where anything less than a doctor or engineer was beyond acceptance, I had to fight for every single step to get to my goal in my career. Though going to NID solved a lot of issues back home, but it raised a new challenge for me, where every face almost questioned me. 

"The battle wasn’t over yet, I had to choose either my passion or a job that was a defined success norm for my family and in general, and of course I took up the job. But I always felt I was not made for the corporate world. And after working for 5 years, one fine day, I decided, This is it!! I left my job as a designer with a Mens Fashion brand. I forayed as an entrepreneur  with another love of my life, Food and launched a very specialized health food catering called Homespoon, back in 2010 when the trend had just started picking up. But as destiny would have it I had to shut it down after running it for one and a half year because of severe health issues personally and because I had someone most important to care for, my son. Life is full of surprises. My son gave me a lot of time to be at home and the time to think about - Who I wanted to be? Where does my heart belong? And there, in those thoughts I found Moya….

What are your short-term business or professional plans?

I have set certain milestones on a monthly/annual basis for myself, looking at the bigger picture I see after 5 years. At present I need to focus on understanding the business side of it,because as a designer I always tend to be less interested in that bit!! Having a website is a must now, so that is also in process. The plan is to open up a store in Bangalore by the end of this year and tap opportunities in the export market. Going forward I want Moya to be the lifestyle destination for people looking for quality innovative products having their roots in Crafts. Anything to do with Crafts cannot be without the Artisans behind it, I wish to light up the lives of the people behind Moya as well, helping them by expanding their scope of work and raising their standards of living, as we progress.

What are the top 3 challenges you face in the working world?

While working with Crafts and artisans is interesting and a lot of fun, it comes with a lot of challenges, language barriers across different clusters, zero commitment levels of the local artisans, time constraints and communication gaps to name a few.

Citing an example from one of my experiences, when I was working with the Madhubani Artisan groups from Madhubani (a village in Bihar), it was a difficult task to convince them work on a different material than cotton and silk which they were used to, when it came to fabric. I wanted them to use a completely different fabric…Chiffon, difficult to handle and not explored by them.

Another challenge was to convince them to work on leather, as most of these artists are Brahmins who won’t touch leather. So I hunted for a group of artists who could do that for me, coz I dint want to hurt any religious sentiments. Anyhow, these challenges have taught me a lot and in the end they have come out with amazing results, that you see in the product range.

And last but the least, Being a woman, with a young child and family, and working in a field which requires a lot of people co-ordination and travel its always living on the edge! Its always easy to choose a life that seems comfortable and settled, but the kick, the excitement that I get when I see my products come alive is inexplicable and unmatched, in the end it all seems worth it. That is what I call my success and happiness.