Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shanthi Ramakrishna. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Shanthi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Taara Projects started as what I thought would only be a small, one-time project in my senior year of high school. At the time, the project consisted of me designing a pair of pants on the plane ride to Bangalore, India, employing a local tailor to sew around 50 pairs of these pants, carrying them all back home in my suitcase, and selling them to my friends in Orlando, Florida. All of the proceeds were donated to NGOs I’d worked with closely. I did not know at the time that this project would turn into a venture I was committed to growing indefinitely.

I re-launched Taara Projects during my freshman year of college, where I was pursuing political science. I wanted to enhance my studies of the problems faced by governments and societies by exploring the potential of businesses to alleviate them, perhaps in a more effective and innovative manner. The first, and perhaps most crucial, step I took to rebuild Taara was deciding not to embark on the process alone. In February 2020, I began forming a team, and by March, Taara was run by a team of six full-time undergraduate students. While all of us were pursuing different academic tracks, we were brought together by our shared desire to learn more about social entrepreneurism. Our goal was to launch our first product within one year.

The pandemic hit four weeks later, cutting our in-person time short. While establishing a team dynamic and growing a business in an entirely virtual format seemed very daunting at first, we rose to the challenge, and this ultimately equipped our team and business with greater resilience and adaptability in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

While COVID’s lockdown mandates divided and isolated the world in many ways, it also produced a new sense of eagerness to connect with one another. This heightened virtual connectivity, and its role as being the primary– if not the only– mode of gathering and sharing ideas made our team close and cohesive from the start. Within the first month of being sent home, our team came together to launch our website and Instagram—crucial first steps in moving beyond the idea phase, growing our audience, and establishing our brand identity prior to launch.

Greater virtual connectedness also enabled our team to connect and collaborate with people who, because of obstacles such as distance, were inaccessible before. During the summer of 2020, we corresponded with several potential manufacturers around the world, resulting in our first partnership. After conducting a vetting process to ensure alignment of timelines, values, and, importantly, the ability to collaborate in an entirely virtual format, we chose to partner with ZY-LK, a sustainable and ethical fashion brand in Chennai, India. By September, we had sent them our initial design of the Taara Pant so they could begin creating samples and planning production.

After prototyping and making adjustments to the garment based on our team’s feedback, Zy-lk began the final production run in early 2021, and in April, our team received the final batch of 105 pants and 200 face masks made from the leftover fabric scraps to minimize waste. On April 22, Earth Day, we launched our first product on our website, and we sold over 40% of our inventory in pants on this day alone. Our team was eager to maintain momentum post-launch as we looked to the future and what was yet to come.

Since then, we have launched two more products: button down shirts, made in partnership with Zy-lk, and tote bags, the result of new partnerships with the New Norm and Belvidere Terrace Atelier. Both companies are based in the US, and the latter is based in Baltimore, right down the road from where our team attended university. Moving forward, we hope to continue this model of sustainable and ethical collaboration as we expand our product offering and grow our venture further.

Shanthi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Taara Projects was born out of my desire to explore solutions for addressing poverty. As a student of international relations and political science, I have always been fascinated by the ways the systems and institutions around us interact and impact—for better or for worse—all layers of our society, from global networks to individuals.

My studies have also made me aware of the slow-moving and often ineffective nature of policy implementation and government action as methods for tackling the world’s most pressing problems. So, I wanted to explore methods outside of the public sector for resolving some of the issues I felt passionate about.

Founding Taara Projects exposed me to the potential of social entrepreneurship to do just this— using business as a method of raising public awareness about urgent problems, while preserving our planet and empowering individuals throughout the process.

Fashion is one of the most socially and environmentally exploitative industries, accounting for up to 10% of yearly global carbon emissions alone. However, this also means that within the industry there is great opportunity for change and positive impact. If the norms surrounding fashion production start to be centered around empowering individuals involved in its supply chain and preserving our planet, the industry could become a crucial agent of advancing much needed changes in our world.

By embracing a social enterprise model, we hope to be an example of the necessity and the viability of sustainability, ethicality, and transparency being intrinsic elements of business models and operations, both within and outside of the fashion space.

Taara Projects economically empowers artisans from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds while embracing an environmentally-conscious supply chain throughout the creation of our fashion products. By embracing a social enterprise model, we hope to serve as an example, albeit on a small scale, of the capacity of businesses to grow in a way that contributes to alleviating global crises in a sustainable and ethical manner, while also maintaining financial viability and resilience.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Taara Projects uses a model of sustainable and ethical collaboration to manufacture its products. We provide the initial designs and then work with small businesses to bring them to life using entirely upcycled or recycled materials and carbon-conscious practices from production to distribution. We found our first partner, Zy-lk, when the world shut down and partnerships had to be built and nurtured virtually. After exploring websites designed to connect small businesses with each other, I ended up finding Zy-lk on Common Objective, a platform dedicated to cultivating a network of mission-focused businesses in the fashion industry and matching ventures with the resources and connections they need to grow.

Zy-lk specializes in creating products using upcycled deadstock fabrics, or perfectly usable material that was made by large firms but went unused or unsold and was thus destined for the landfill if Zy-lk didn’t repurpose them. They also use an impact-focused employment model— employing artisans from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, fostering an empowering work environment, and ensuring their artisans are fairly compensated and paid a living wage. After several conversations over email and calls, we felt confident in Zy-lk to manufacture our products with quality. Because Zy-lk and Taara uphold the same values, partnering with them for our Taara Pant and Button Down Shirt allowed us to fulfill our mission while growing our business. Both products were made from upcycled deadstock fabric and made by the hearing and speech impaired women and migrant workers Zy-lk trains and employs.

Our tote bags are manufactured by our partners based in the US, who we also met virtually. The New Norm, founded by Lauren Choi, creates material for fashion products using recycled plastics. Lauren reached out to Taara Projects via Instagram, and after a single Zoom call, we decided to collaborate on the Taara Tote, made using the New Norm’s recycled ocean plastic fabric—ALMARAE— produced in North Carolina. The fabric is then cut and sewn into the final product by Belvidere Terrace Atelier (BTA) in Baltimore, right down the road from where Taara’s team attends university. Both the New Norm and BTA are committed to minimizing environmentally degrading practices. Thus, our totes are handmade and cut to exact measurements, eliminating scraps and wasted materials. In fact, 0.5-1lb of ocean plastics are diverted and recycled per tote bag.

In cultivating each partnership and creating each product, I learned how important it is to be relentless about details in terms of the design elements and how the product is made. This requires patience throughout the production process, being critical of each prototype and iteration, constantly trying to deepen the positive impact your product carries, and working with your partner to ensure that the product is a culmination of your vision and your partner’s expertise and guidance.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I came into college thinking I wanted a career in policy or diplomacy, and I therefore pursued a degree in political science. Growing Taara Projects introduced me to social entrepreneurism, and after learning more, it became a space I was very compelled by and wanted to pursue further. This was the first time I re-considered both my studies and my career aspirations, and I wondered whether it would be best to pivot to studying business and entrepreneurship. At first, I thought that both my academic and professional tracks had to be in direct alignment— if I studied political science, I should pursue a career in policy, and if I studied entrepreneurship, I should pursue a career in business.

However, I ended up staying on my original academic track and am now pursuing a graduate degree in international relations, while continuing to grow Taara Projects and striving for a career in the entrepreneurship space. I found that I was still fascinated by the content I was studying— how states, institutions, and societies work and interact with us, and how we interact with them—and I could use this background to better understand the role of business in accelerating changes the public sector tries to achieve, but is often slow or unable to accomplish. Particularly, I realized that the pivot in my interests did not have to entail sacrificing the academic course I was on. Instead, I could leverage my interest in sustainable development and entrepreneurship and use it as a lens to study international relations, and vice versa. Pivoting lenses, I’ve found, can equip you with a new and unique perspective that is oftentimes crucial for fostering deeper awareness of the spaces you’re interested in. The two systems—the public and private sectors—are indeed interrelated and an understanding of one is absolutely necessary to fully understand the other.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://taaraprojects.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taaraprojects/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/taaraprojects/