Kochi entrepreneur turns setback into sustainable craft brand, Amsham Handmade marks 10 years
Kollam native Amal S Pillai calls his entry into art and craft “accidental.”At 31, he looks back at a college fracture to his left arm that sidelined him from regular work. Short on money, he turned to handicrafts. Without funds for materials, he improvised — swapping satin ribbons for scrap cloth from tailors and rolling newspapers into twine.
That resourcefulness became the blueprint for Amsham Handmade, the sustainable creative venture he founded in 2015. Now based in Kochi and Chennai, the initiative marks a decade of upcycling this year.
Amsham’s work centers on restoring old fabrics, bottles, and discarded cable wires into design-led products. Beyond its product line, it runs workshops and donation drives, building a community around zero-waste craft.
What began as a workaround for a broken arm has grown into a model for circular design. For Pillai, waste isn’t the end of a material’s story — it’s the start.
