The name Koodai Kind brings together two worlds, heritage and heart.
“Koodai” is the Tamil word for basket. And the wire koodai is more than just a basket. It’s the rhythm of life.
If you grew up in the region, you saw it outside shops, inside kitchens, dangling from bicycle handles. Women would weave them in their spare time. Men would carry them without a second thought. It was once an irreplaceable household presence.
A filled Koodai bag’s rustle was the soundtrack of the everyday.
“Kind” is a reflection of our philosophy, kindness to craft, to community, and to the planet. Every bag is created with respect for the people who make it and the materials that shape it.
✦ Lined with water-repellent cotton that shields your belongings on a rainy day.
✦ Shaped by hand in Tamil Nadu, preserving age-old handicraft artistry.
✦ Finished with leather from LWG-certified tanneries, to uphold transparency,
✦ Delivered in a reusable cotton-dust drawstring bag to protect it from the elements.
The Art of Seeing
Art has always been the lens through which we see the world. The meeting point between emotion, memory, and form.
The early Impressionists taught us how light could transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Artists like Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet painted not perfection but feeling. Colour as emotion. Texture as movement. Their work is a reminder that beauty lies in honesty and imperfection - the play of shadow and light in all things crafted by hand.
Closer to home, the Progressive Artists’ Group, especially S.H. Raza influences our thought on design. Raza’s use of geometry and colour; his bindu, the circle that symbolises origin and wholeness. This mirrors what we hope to achieve with Koodai Kind: the balance between the past and the present, craft and modernity, restraint and expression. His palette, earthy yet luminous, finds its echo in the tones of our bags: black, yellow, indigo, green. These colours feel rooted in the Indian landscape, yet timeless in their appeal.
And then there is the art of the South. A.V. Ilango and Thotta Vaikuntam, artists who capture the spirit of everyday life in Tamil Nadu and Telangana with such tenderness.
Koodai Kind is, in essence, an expression of that lineage. A meditation on balance between hand and form, tradition and modernity, permanence and change.
The Art of Choosing
Koodai Kind is born from a philosophy of choosing well. Of surrounding oneself not with abundance, but with meaning. It is inspired by a way of life where every object held purpose and presence — the gleam of polished brass, the warmth of woven mats, the quiet dignity of wood.
It is an inheritance of sensibility. An understanding that beauty is not in excess, but in balance. That refinement is not found in ornament, but in intention. This belief continues to shape everything we create: simplicity that endures, design that feels inevitable.
The Art of Reimagining
At Koodai Kind, we embrace the spirit of Hermes’ Petit h — transforming leftover materials into something extraordinary. Guiding us is a philosophy of reverse creation: honoring the potential in what might otherwise be discarded. By reimagining and repurposing remnants of fabric, weave, and color, we craft pieces that are not only beautiful but rooted in sustainability and mindful resourcefulness
We treat each remnant not as waste, but as memory, carrying its own history of hands, craft, and place. By giving these materials a second life, we create objects that feel both contemporary and time-worn, familiar yet renewed. It is our way of honoring the land, the artisan, and the lineage of making - one thoughtful choice at a time.