Dear #mattertribe,
Since our beginning 5 years ago, we’ve committed to transparency and social change. In light of the current situation, there’s been more changes and updates on our end that we would like to share with you in this open letter.
As an online brand, we don’t have brick and mortar shops, but our team has split into two to ensure social distancing. Most of our partners are based in India and the government recently imposed a lockdown in some of the states. As a lot of our production partners are affected, we’ll be expecting delays for ongoing productions. Some of our partners usually work from home (like our handloom artisans in Chomu, and some of the tailors from Khushiram’s stitching unit in Jaipur), and so they are able to continue working despite the lockdown. Workers that are getting monthly wages are still getting paid but the biggest impact will be on the artisans that are receiving daily wages. The state governments are coming out with schemes to provide daily allowances to help as much as possible.
Then comes the more pressing matter: our team has felt the impact of Covid-19 on our internal operations and finances, and our biggest concern is the effect this will have in the long run. Our priority right now is to keep going and going strong for as long as we can to continue doing what we do best.
As you might know, we usually only have 2 sales a year, one at the start of the year and the other during summer, but in light of the current situation, we’ve decided to bring it forward and have it start earlier and last longer. Most of the items will be on 15%, with selected items that will not be returning at up to 50% off.
To stay true to our beliefs in transparency (especially when it comes to sales), we’ve introduced a core selection of our items that will be excluded and moving forward, you can expect these items to not be included in our annual sales. (As always, our newly introduce collaboration pieces, #TMPxMATTER dresses, will be excluded as well.)
We know these are uncertain times, but if you find yourself financially stable and in need of our products, please do consider buying from us now and over the coming weeks. We need your support now more than ever. For those of you who may be facing financial worries, please don’t feel the need or pressure to buy from us during this time. We completely understand, and would instead like to encourage you to support us in other ways: either by sharing about what we are doing, taking a look at our journal articles, or posting about our brand. Every little bit counts.
We’ll probably be in touch more than usual during this time, and we hope that you feel free to reach out too. Whether you have questions about our sale, products, or partners, we’re here to keep the conversation going.
Stay safe and take care of one another.