We love to say handmade.
We use it in brand decks, Instagram captions, export catalogues, and price justifications.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth,
Most markets don’t actually want the maker. They want the output, minus the human.
They want embroidery—but not the 30 hours someone sat, hunched, repeating a stitch until her fingers numbed.
They want perfection—but not the moment when thread ran out and a darker flower appeared.
They want craft—but without the thumbprint, the voice, the story.
That darker flower in the Pyjama....
It’s not a defect.
It’s the exact moment a human became visible in a system designed to erase her.
Brands love to say “artisan-made” and then expect the artisan to behave like a ghost in the machine:
No opinion
No story
No deviation
No proof of struggle or limitation
Just produce, quietly.
And then we wonder why handcrafted industries are collapsing, why younger generations don’t want to enter craft, why everything is being redesigned to look “cleaner”, “neater”, “more machine-like”.
Because we’ve taught the market that:
Consistency matters more than context
Finish matters more than process
Marketing matters more than making...
What we actually need are artist-driven brands.
Not fluff-heavy storytelling.
Not over-polished narratives written by agencies.
Just,
Real products
Made by real people
With real stories that don’t need to be airbrushed
If a handmade product has to look machine-made to be accepted, then we’re not valuing craft.
We’re just borrowing its aesthetics—while erasing the hands that made it.
And that’s not appreciation.
That’s exploitation dressed up as branding.
Submitted December 28, 2025 at 04:06AM by Tas_J_Nehru https://ift.tt/ijoy7xq
