How Chaak Design Started: Our Story

It Started With One Trip to Kakori

In 2020, Nidhi Yadav travelled to Kakori for what was meant to be project work — part of her studies at NIFT, the National Institute of Fashion Technology. What she found there changed the course of her life, and eventually gave birth to Chaak Design.

COVID had just hit, and the women artisans of Kakori, many of them skilled in chikankari embroidery, were watching their small businesses shut down almost overnight. Markets had closed. Buyers had disappeared. Years of skill, passed down through families, suddenly had nowhere to go.

Nidhi did the only thing she could think to do: she started selling their chikankari work herself, through Instagram, one post and one order at a time.

From One Craft to a Mission

That first small effort turned into something bigger. Working directly with the Kakori artisans showed Nidhi something she hadn't expected — a genuine sense of purpose in connecting skilled hands to people who'd value their work. But she also learned, quickly and firsthand, that handicrafts are hard to sell. Beautiful, painstaking work often goes unnoticed simply because it never reaches the right audience.

So she kept going. She began working with more artisan clusters — the marble craftsmen of Agra, and the ceramic artisans of Khurja — bringing their work together under one growing effort. What began as a single Instagram page selling embroidery became a proper brand: Chaak Design.

Why the Name Chaak?

Chaak comes from the Hindi word for the potter's wheel — the simple, ancient tool on which mitti, raw clay, is shaped into something with form and purpose. It felt like the right name for a brand built entirely on the idea of shaping raw material, and raw opportunity, into something meaningful — for both the artisans and the people who'd bring their work home.

Building It Alone, One Piece at a Time

In those early years, Nidhi did nearly everything herself. She built the website. She handled the company registration. She personally set up and managed the brand's presence on Amazon and Myntra, learning the mechanics of e-commerce the way she'd learned everything else in this journey — by doing it, one step at a time, without a playbook to follow.

It wasn't glamorous work. It was late nights figuring out logistics, learning what sells and what doesn't, and staying close to the artisans throughout — because the whole point was never to be just another home décor brand. It was to make sure the people actually making the pieces weren't left behind by the businesses selling them.

What Chaak Design Stands For Today

Every piece in the Chaak Design collection today — whether it's marble from Agra, ceramic from Khurja, or brass from Moradabad — carries forward that same original idea: connect more artisans, especially women, to real, sustainable income through their craft.

The brand has grown well beyond that first Instagram page of chikankari embroidery, but the mission hasn't changed. Chaak Design exists to help skilled artisans — many of them women whose businesses might otherwise have been forgotten — find an audience that genuinely values what they make.

FAQ

When was Chaak Design founded?
Chaak Design was founded in 2020, starting with an effort to support chikankari artisans in Kakori during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Who founded Chaak Design?
Chaak Design was founded by Nidhi Yadav, a NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) graduate.

What does the name Chaak mean?
Chaak refers to the potter's wheel in Hindi — the traditional tool used to shape clay (mitti) into form, symbolizing the brand's mission of shaping raw craft into opportunity.

What artisan communities does Chaak Design work with?
Chaak Design works with artisan clusters across India, including marble craftsmen in Agra, ceramic artisans in Khurja, and brass artisans connected to the Moradabad tradition.

What is Chaak Design's core mission?
To connect skilled Indian artisans, especially women, with a wider audience — helping them earn sustainable income through their craft rather than letting valuable skills go unseen.