Our story - The Shanti home
Deep in the Kashmir Valley, where the Himalayas meet the sky and artisan families have been weaving, felting and embroidering for centuries, something rare still exists: craft that has never been rushed. The Shanti Home was born from a love of that craft, those colours, and the belief that the things you bring into your home should tell a story that means something.
We are Jo and Fayaz. Jo grew up in Germany. Fayaz grew up in Kashmir. We met somewhere between those two worlds — and found that the distance between them was exactly the right space for a amazing business to grow.
The idea came to life in Dharamsala, at the foot of the Himalayas, where we were living at that time, travelling to Kashmir many times and falling deeper in love with the craftsmanship all around us. We moved to Kashmir to get closer to it — to the artisan families, the wool, the tradition — and that is where The Shanti Home truly began. Life brought us to Germany for some years, where we ran the business from afar, travelling back to Kashmir as often as we could. But Kashmir was always pulling us home. Today we are back, with our 3 kids — living and working in the valley, close to Fayaz's family, some of whom work alongside us and are part of everything we make.
"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." — Rumi
We work with traditional Kashmiri designs that have been passed down through generations — and we create many of our own designs from scratch, brought to life in close collaboration with the artisan families we have built deep relationships with over the years. Our Kashmiri Namda rugs are hand-felted from pure Himalayan wool by master craftsmen who learned this ancient art from their fathers, who learned it from theirs. Our crewel embroidery pieces — curtains, floor seating, wall decor — are stitched by hand with wool thread on cotton, each one taking weeks to complete. And our signature canopies we make ourselves, by hand, with love, right here in Kashmir.
Beyond Kashmir, we work with a small circle of trusted artisan families in Rajasthan and Gujarat — collaborating on our patchwork pieces and breathing new life into vintage sari textiles that deserve to be loved again.
We use natural materials — Himalayan sheep wool, walnut wood, pre-loved vintage fabrics. We pay fairly, work slowly, and choose depth over scale every time. Fair trade is not a label we wear. It is simply how we work.
Every piece you choose from The Shanti Home keeps something alive — an ancient technique, a family's livelihood, a tradition that has survived centuries and deserves to survive many more. In a world that moves faster every year, we choose to move differently. To make slowly. To make with meaning. To make things that outlast the moment they were bought and become part of the story of your home. That is what Kashmir has always known how to do. We are simply honoured to share it with you.
