Our Story

RAMALAYA – Ramalaya Design Establishment

We are a great stop for worldly well travelled shoppers with an eye for design, craftsmanship and a mind for the soul of the story behind them. RAMALAYA is a retail concept, that connects interesting brands that like to celebrate design, as well as communicators towards society, solving social and environmental problems. Created for living, we like to bring together elements of education, culture, creation, art, craft, sustainability and inter connectivity.

Our Story

RAMALAYA – Ramalaya Design Establishment
We are a great stop for worldly well travelled shoppers with an eye for design, craftsmanship and a mind for the soul of the story behind them. RAMALAYA is a retail concept that connects interesting brands that share like to celebrate design, as well as communicators towards society, solving social or environmental problems. Created for living, we like to bring together elements of education, culture, creation, art, craft, sustainability and inter connectivity.

Philosophy

four grounding principles

We want to encourage asking questions. From society, to history to our products and if they are making a positive contribution?  Are we educating people on the environment?  Or on the textiles of Nepal?

  • Explore – To educate people about the materials represented, culture, flora and fauna.

  • Conserve – To help save lives, community building and out reach to women.

  • Explain – To protect handmade, authentic craft, eco friendly practices, sustainable know how.
  • Encourage – Artist collaborations and community participation.

Philosophy

four grounding principles

We want to encourage asking questions. From society, to history to our products and if they are making a positive contribution? Are we educating people on the environment? Or on the textiles of Nepal?

  • Explore – To educate people about the materials represented, culture, flora and fauna.
  • Conserve – to help save lives, community building and out reach to women.
  • Explain – To protect handmade, authentic craft, eco friendly practices, sustainable know how.
  • Encourage – Artist collaborations and community participation.

RAMALAYA through Himalayan Atelier Would like to show you the Mountain Kingdom.

Since the inception of RAMALAYA, we have been focused on creating a brand that is committed to creativity, conservation and culture of Nepal. We present to you Himalayan Atelier, in our quest to save the Nepalese traditions. We create our products, through our love of Nepal and a passion for design to create a unique Himalayan style immersed between the modern and reminiscent Nepal. We are always exploring creating and promoting Himalayan Design and Craftsmanship.

The Journey

Having started with our furniture shop RAMALAYA, to import from homewares from various countries, we went through some perspective shifting and immersed ourselves to set up an in house brand “Himalayan Atelier” to create signature ‘made in Nepal’ products.  As we had come to the realization by then, that the shop and products were a powerful medium for storytelling. Thus Himalayan Atelier was founded for exploring, creating, promoting Himalayan design and craftsmanship.

The Founders

The founders, a mother and daughter team, design products to ensure harmony within the product lines through creativity and intuition, whilst protecting the authenticity of the Himalayan culture and it’s natural environment. It’s about imagining the step in the story and having a personal engagement with the artisans to get there.

The Future

To present our love for history, design and showcase the richness of our culture. With our passion to educate people on Nepal and offer a new perspective on it. From educating people, on what Nepal has to offer to educating our artisans with new ways to collaborate in creating products, that we hope will help shape culture through design, in the future. Our attempt is to be modern with the times without losing our traditions from the past.

Himalayan Atelier Community

Our People and Our Team

The company works with 6 ateliers and 30 artisans across Nepal. Ramalaya is a family business focused on craft. Behind the brand there is a story. There is a family. The approach is not as a company but as a home. Keeping this approach in mind, we consider everyone involved, part of the extended family.

Sourcing the raw materials from our main atelier to the smaller satellite ateliers, we send the materials to the women who often have second jobs and usually cannot commit to a full time job or come to main atelier.  Therefore there are mini ateliers set up to help women juggle time whilst learning skills and preserving traditions.

At the head office of Ramalaya we come together with designers, product ideas, fabrics, story boards and these are sent to our favourite suppliers to create quality products for us. Our products had to tick the box of being creative and made in Nepal by Haath (hand), which RAMALAYA was comfortable with being a creative company based in Nepal but we also were pushed to tick another box which was conservation. This was instilled by one of our favorite advisers on board Tanya Pascual. Under her watchful eye we reduced the use of plastic to nominal amounts, in all our packaging, and used natural dyes where we could, which used indigenous plants from Nepal and highlighted compassion towards animals and conservation.

The Mountain Kingdom

Deep in the Himalayas you will discover Nepal a country situated between India and China. The country has three main ecological differences, starting from the Terai plains near the Indian border, the Middle Hills and then the High Himalayas. These variations also mirror the diverse population’s customs and language. Our country and its’ diversity is our inspiration for our product designs.