Values

We built CatSam around a simple belief: it is possible to run a business where nobody loses.

Every person in our production chain — the artisans, the workshop families, the stone polishers, the finishers — should benefit from being part of what we make together. Not just adequately. Genuinely. That means working conditions, wages and hours that are well above local averages and meet our own high standards. It means showing up in person, regularly, and getting to know the people involved not as suppliers but as human beings. Many of them we consider friends. Some we consider family.

Because we work directly with makers and avoid intermediary traders, we keep our costs honest — and pass that honesty on to our customers. Our prices are competitive with brands that have never asked a single question about how their jewelry is made. We think that says something.

Bappa polising some silver bracelets in our workshop in Jaipur

Sanjay teaching us how to mark agate slices before cutting them

Cate learning how to polish 4 mm turquoise cabochons 

Packaging

We ship plastic-free. Every order leaves us in recycled paper envelopes, tied with jute string, with your jewelry wrapped in a bag made from recycled sari fabric. Small details, but they add up.

Giving Back

This year we are working towards donating a percentage of our profits to an NGO in India dedicated to protecting women and supporting their wellbeing — in communities where the circumstances women face are, too often, something closer to medieval than modern. We will share more details as this develops.

The bigger picture

Fair trade and sustainability are words that get used a lot. We prefer to show what they mean through how we work, who we work with, and the choices we make every day — even when they are harder or more expensive than the alternative.

We believe good business and good values are not in conflict. 

We want to be transparent about something else too: we are a family running a small business, and our first responsibility is to survive and keep moving. The goal has never been to become wealthy. It has always been to earn enough to live our lives with relative freedom — and to do that without leaving a trail of exploitation behind us. We believe those two things are not in conflict. CatSam is our proof of that.