After falling in love with cashmere through exploring the backstreet stores of Kathmandu, Anna Kiousis decided to launch her very own ethical cashmere brand, Kasmiri.
As Kasmiri's founder and creative director, Kiousis' fashion label combines her main passions - a love for pure materials, exquisite luxury fashion and an intrinsic desire to continue to make the world a better place.
“My journey into luxury fashion is really a distillation of my life’s work," she explained.
"I realised I could put my skills in managing successful women’s start-up enterprises in the developing world to building a global ethical luxury cashmere brand that supports highly skilled weavers, women, and their families."
Through working in countries in the Global South, Kiousis acquired an understanding of craftsmanship and its importance to the heritage and livelihood of these places. She ensures all her products are ethically handmade by dedicated, skilled artisans within Nepal, instead of being mass-produced in Global North countries.
These expert Nepalese artisans use a combination of traditional and modern technologies to create products with exquisite attention to texture and detail. Most importantly, the woman artisans have the power to oversee the production of an item from start to finish, so their passion and craft are reflected in each product.
Kiousis has always loved exquisite wearable works of art that share stories of carefully crafted cashmere woven into luxurious scarfs, towel wraps, robes and blanket throws.
She also focuses exclusively on being an authentic “slow fashion” brand through creating timeless pieces that can be passed down for many generations to come.
Her latest collection celebrated the mastery of the weavers to create intricate and striking textures on handlooms using bold colours. Many of her other pieces maintain soft neutral tones like olive, cream and spice.
There is no shortage of achievements for Kiousis, as her experience in developing countries has helped shape who she is today and enabled her to assist hundreds of women in following their business dreams. Her husband is also being a positive force behind her own business journey.
The main goals for Kiousis moving forward is to create a recognisable brand with unique designs, while also inspiring and empowering her daughters to dream big and work towards their own dreams.
She highly encourages anyone starting in fashion to ensure they are ethically centred in everything they do.
“Before you begin, ask yourself, what good will my fashion brand do to the health and well-being of our planet and its people?”
