About us

Born out of a passion for craft and the making, we at The Elephant Head, strive to keep traditional art and craft at the heart of home design. Our products are largely influenced by art and craft from India.

We’re a small family run business based in London. We're passionate about delivering beautiful products that have a purpose; ones that sustain people with work and keep traditional artisan skills alive. We hope you love our products as much as we do.

Our values and commitment

Through the small steps we take, we’re committed to being a better business. The people we work with, the materials we choose, all shape our designs and form the core of our products and values. 

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Artisan Made

To us the human touch matters.

We partner with social enterprises, small-scale artisan groups, co-ops and workshops from India and around the world to create unique products that are crafted with love using local materials, time-honoured skills and traditional techniques.

In doing so, we always ensure we pay our artisans and suppliers a fair price. Where required, we pay our artisans and small producers upfront, to help them procure materials and enable the production of products. This allows them to gain skills and confidence, leading to economic self-sufficiency for themselves and their local community.

 

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Rooted in Traditional Craft

We love products that have a story to tell.

We’re passionate about introducing products that are rooted in traditional art and craft techniques, have a story to tell, but ones that have a practical purpose and therefore fit seamlessly into contemporary homes.

We’ve worked with traditional craft forms such as Sahranpur wood carving, Blue pottery from Rajasthan, Wood craft from Channapatna, Aari embroidery and Papier mache from Kashmir to Rich Textile traditions from Pochampally. We believe that each piece we support helps preserve these traditions for the next generation.

 

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Environmentally Friendly

Sourced with the environment in mind.

Our products are made with natural, recycled and reclaimed materials, ranging from recycled paper products and reclaimed wood home accessories to vintage windows reclaimed from architectural salvage. As we grow our product lines we’ll continue our efforts in this direction.

We also manufacture our products in small batches to help control the materials we're using and reduce our environmental footprint.

We're also working to find environmentally friendly ways to package our products. Where possible we re-use all the packaging, including boxes that we receive from our suppliers.

 

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Socially Conscious

This is at the heart of what we aim to do.
We’re a proud supporter of the social enterprise sector.

To us, this is at the heart of what we aim to do -- deliver beautiful products that have a purpose; ones that sustain people with work and keep traditional artisan skills alive, while also continuing to work with organisations such as Aham Bhumika, Varnam Craft Collective and Auroville Papers, who through work they do and the products they make tackle social or environmental problems and in turn improve communities.

 

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To Give Back

‘We rise by lifting others'- Robert Ingersoll

No matter how tough we think life is there’s always someone who has to face challenges that are even tougher than ours.

We understand the importance of giving back and the positive change it can make to communities. Going forward, we have therefore committed to contributing 10% of our profits from our charity-made range back to our charity partners Aham Bhumika . Through our small contribution and continuing support, we hope to be able to provide more employment opportunities to the women working with Aham Bhumika and their communities.

Based in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh in India, Aham Bhumika is a charity that works to equip underprivileged women living in rural areas with the skills they need to earn a living and become self-sufficient. So far, the embroidery project has taught more than 30 women how to create beautiful products such as sarees, tote bags and cushion covers which they can then sell to generate an income.