Our story
Two generations, one thread.
Honeycomb International was founded in Ahmedabad in 1969 by Nazir Weldingwala, a man who fell for the cloth of Kutch and spent his life taking it to the world. His son Sohel Weldingwala leads it today, with the same conviction that handmade cloth belongs in the best homes on earth.
Sohel Weldingwala
Managing Director
Son of Nazir Weldingwala, founder
Showcasing craftsmanship since 1969
Ahmedabad has been a textile city for five hundred years. It sits between the block printers of Rajasthan to the north, the embroiderers and weavers of Kutch to the west, and the mills that once made it the Manchester of India. In 1956, a young Nazir Weldingwala made his first trip into the villages of Kutch and came back with an obsession. He began guiding foreign visitors there, and in 1969 that obsession became a company: a place to find the best hands in the region, design with them rather than for them, and take the result to the world.
Under Nazirbhai, and then under his son Sohel, Honeycomb grew into a design, product development, manufacturing and export house working with more than three thousand artisans, women and men, across Gujarat and Rajasthan. Through the 1990s and 2000s that meant block-printed bed linen for boutiques in Paris, tie-dyed quilts and cushions for homeware houses in Europe and North America, cotton dhurries, bandhani scarves and hand-quilted throws. It meant long days in printing sheds and dye yards, and long evenings in village courtyards watching quilts come together.
Along the way it also meant collecting: kantha, patola, phulkari, kalamkari, Kashmir shawls, zardozi on velvet, pieces bought not to sell but to learn from. Honeycomb encouraged many upcoming artisans and national award winners, and worked to keep the skills of their craft alive.
Today Honeycomb works from the same table at Cama Hotel, Khanpur, with the same crafts and the same families, and a new generation at hand to help tell the story — and with the same conviction it started with: that the slow way is the right way.
Sohel Weldingwala among the dye pots of a printing workshop, 2014.
Timeline
- 1956
A first trip to Kutch
Nazir Weldingwala, ‘Nazirbhai’ to everyone who knew him, travels to the then-unexplored villages of Kutch and is captivated by their embroidery, appliqué and printed cloth. He begins taking curious foreign visitors to the region.
- 1969
Honeycomb International is founded
What began as a benevolent act in tourism becomes a full-scale enterprise for promoting the arts, crafts and handicrafts of Gujarat. The horse-and-rider mark, borrowed from the appliqué tradition, becomes the company’s signature, and the first Honeycomb catalogue follows in 1969–70.
- 1990s
Sohel joins
Nazir’s son Sohel takes the business into design and product development, adapting traditional techniques to the tastes of international retailers and interior houses.
- 1998
Onto the web
Block-printed bed linen, appliqué wall hangings, bandhani scarves and cotton dhurries are photographed for a new printed catalogue and the company’s website.
- 2000s
Paris, Madrid, San Francisco
Honeycomb develops and supplies collections for leading homeware retailers and design houses across Europe, North America and Asia, working with more than 3,000 artisans.
- 2012
Inspirations from Nature
A brochure and film document the range and the workshops: four collections named for a peacock, a full moon, a snowflake and freshly hewn wood.
- 2026
A new chapter
Led by Sohel, with the same families, the same crafts, and a new generation helping to tell the story.
How we work
Four things
we won’t change.
Made by hand, on purpose
We choose the slow way because it produces cloth that machines cannot: irregular, alive, and unmistakably human.
Families, not factories
We source and allocate work to independent artisans and village groups, women and men, pay by the piece, and come back every season.
Designed from the source
Our archive of antique Indian textiles is the starting point for new work, not a museum.
Personal and collaborative
From the first sketch through sampling, production, quality control and shipment, one conversation, with the same people.
The showroom
Where the buying happens.
Buyers have been sitting down at Cama Hotel, Khanpur, with tea and a wall of folded quilts for decades. The showroom is open again by appointment.
Come and see
for yourself.
We welcome clients to Ahmedabad to visit the workshops, the showroom and the archive. Or start with a conversation.