KaHo creates a beautiful range of clothing and homeware with vibrant colours, and the softest cottons and all prints are designed by hand in West Sussex.

We are excited to introduce KaHo Prints products into Curated, our Herb House Spa shop, and wanted to get to know them a little better…

Tell us a bit about how KaHo Prints came about. What was the inspiration behind KaHo Prints?

Growing up, I spent much time in the South of France. My weekends were spent going to markets and wonderful beaches which were colourful, vivid and at that time relatively free from tourists!

This ignited my passion for colour and fabric. I used to return from these holidays with bursting suitcases, full of French finds - clothing, fabric, cushions, and baskets! My purchases were fun, vibrant, different, loved by friends and importantly they had not cost the earth!

My career then took me all over the world, meeting super interesting designers, creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs. I always dreamed of combining my passion for colour and fabric with this wider experience that I had gained in my career. So, when the lockdown happened, I felt that it was "now or never" and I took the plunge to create KaHo Prints!

What was the inspiration behind KaHo Prints?

The love of colour and print was born in those weekend markets in the South of France. I spotted a gap in the UK market for combining vibrant prints with simple, well-cut, flattering lady’s clothes and practical homewares that are designed to last and importantly reasonably priced.

My prints and colours are inspired by the incredible British countryside and hopefully give joy and happiness to many!

Your prints are designed by hand in West Sussex, can you tell us more about the process in which the products are made?

As you say, I design my prints at home in West Sussex. I either draw my own prints by hand or use traditional Indian designs as the basis for my fabrics. My blocks are then carved out of teak in Jaipur and then soaked in oil for a number of weeks to prevent them from cracking when being used with the printing.

I work with a two-generation family company who take a tremendous amount of pride in its incredible artisanal work. They have specialists who have worked with them for many years and are part of one big family.

Having selected the colours that, I want to work with for a particular season, I partner with the Colour Master in Jaipur to create the perfect shades – perhaps a sugary pink or sky blue - it can often take a number of days to achieve the perfect tone! Sampling colours is great fun. This is when I experiment with our new blocks with the different colours that have been mixed and create so many different combinations. The only tricky part is then deciding which samples are my favourites!

I then select a range of fabrics and printing starts on the softest organic Indian cotton. The printing takes place on huge, long tables (like in the photo above). The weather for this stage must be perfect - too humid and the dyes will run or too wet and the dyes won’t dry and will smudge. It is a time-consuming process and only 100 metres of block printed fabric is produced each day.

I then design and cut all my own clothing patterns which are designed to cleverly flatter all shapes and sizes. Each seamstress is responsible for stitching a full piece of clothing, not just part of it… this results in greater job satisfaction and better-quality garments with excellent print placement.

What makes your products unique?

All my fabrics and products are completely designed by myself from beginning to end. The prints, the colours, and the patterns. 

While it may be easier to buy readily available fabric “off the shelf” in the markets in Jaipur and then quickly have them made up into my clothing and homeware, I choose to design every single piece of fabric and clothing myself. This means they are exclusively produced for KaHo Prints. This allows me to achieve the exact colours and prints that I really love!

Because each piece is unique and printed by hand - they all have their own personality and are real works of art. In terms of my clothing - I only ever produce limited quantities of each of my prints - so this reduces the chances of bumping into someone at a party wearing the same!

Can you tell us about how KaHo Prints are sustainable?

Minimising our impact on the environment is just as important to us as the joy that our prints give you. For this reason, we put a huge amount of energy into ensuring that our raw materials, production processes and products are as environmentally friendly as possible and that every scrap of material is used!

All our cottons are organic, and our colours and dyes are Azo-free meaning that they are lead-free and safer for the waterways, local communities, and farmers. In terms of production, each seamstress works on one full garment at a time - resulting in greater job satisfaction but also reducing errors and ultimately waste.

All our fabric offcuts are used to make our small accessories such as scrunchies, lavender bags or fabric-covered books. In our books - even the paper is made from recycled cotton which has been pulped!

Finally, all our packaging materials for fulfilment are 100% recyclable, biodegradable and plastic-free. 

Have you got any exciting projects coming up?

Yes, exciting, and slightly daunting! This year, I have been selected to exhibit my prints at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May. I am totally thrilled to be part of the Show as all my prints and colours are inspired by the British countryside and I am a passionate garden and plant lover!

I am busy receiving the new Spring-Summer collection which has just been produced (boxes from Jaipur are arriving daily at the farm!) and designing my exhibition stand… I am keen not only to show off my exciting new range but also to show customers the journey from beginning to end of how their prints and products have been created! If any of your readers are at the Show, please do pop by our stand and say hello – I’d love to meet them!

Shop KaHo Prints at Curated!