Special Edition: The Delightfully Unexpected
I’ve never been to Berlin, but I think I have a whole week’s worth of people to meet for coffee or dinner there. That is the power of our hybrid reality.
I first met Mitali Gupta when she cold emailed me after seeing a classified ad I ran for this newsletter. We met for the first time on a video chat across time zones, had a chance to have coffee in person when she was in Boston visiting her partner soon after, and have remained in touch via email, text, and video calls since then.
Across an ocean, I was able to connect Mitali with the House of Beautiful Business and with a number of people I’ve come to know in Berlin, leading to everything from work collaborations to game nights.
The impact of design on our ability to build community and connection extends out to the cities we live in- or perhaps it extends in from those cities.
I am told that Berlin is lonely- not just the culture but also the physical layout. A quick hello on the street provides a touchpoint, but it’s no place for a full gathering. Neighborhoods are spread out, travel times extensive, and it’s difficult to feel a sense of belonging. But online, the distance between here and there is a click of a button. An intentional introduction or invitation can be the bridge across a sprawling city.
I’ve been thinking about writing feature pieces about people and companies and projects whose stories I can tell through the lens of how they approach connection and being a connector- people who are also thinking about solutions to our current state of increasing isolation and disconnection as a holistic layer to their work, even when that work is something as unexpected as making cowboy boots. This piece has been in the works for months, and I’m thrilled to be sharing it now, in the context of my newly clarified purpose for my work.
The Common Threads of Community
Mitali is an entrepreneur in Berlin with roots in India, influential years spent in an international school in the Himalayas, and work and life experience that took her across New York City, London, and Dublin before landing in Berlin. She defines community as being rooted in a sense of belonging that draws upon the strength of people’s differences rather than belonging that comes from everyone being alike.
A defining characteristic of a successful community is the way its people not only celebrate joys together, but also support each other through challenges. For Mitali, she has seen that collective joy and collective support be even stronger when it forms among groups of different cultures- where community itself is the common thread of belonging.
Mitali’s company, Chalo, makes cowboy boots for your everyday. The boots are produced at a family owned factory in India, where her conviction in the strength and importance of human connection shapes her approach to sustainable production, elevating local artisans, and making meaningful contributions to the community in which she operates her business.
Cowboy Boots are Always the Answer
The two things that stood out to me the most in our conversations about Chalo were the way she thoughtfully bridges East and West, and the concept of the boots being for the everyday, not just special occasions.
The East: producing the boots in India is a delightfully unexpected choice, one that allows her to amplify the talent of skilled makers from her hometown and contribute generatively to the local ecosystem. They even have an initiative to support early education for the artisans’ children.
The West: the inspiration for cowboy boots, and the more common image that comes to mind of where cowboy boots are made and worn.
The multicultural core of Chalo succeeds at giving its customers permission to connect the dots across their own hyphenated identities, allowing cowboy boots to transcend occasions the same way that the higher goals of community transcend differences among people.
This versatility underscores the notion that cowboy boots are for everything from your everyday to your big days. When we talked about this aspect, it reminded me of the quote, “you can’t pin joy like a moth.” These boots are meant to be worn and enjoyed, from an Indian wedding to a Western rodeo, not tucked away and saved for a special occasion.
Offline/Online Dualities
We live in a hybrid world. Mitali, like all of us, grapples with building a business (and a life) that is one foot offline, one foot online. Everything has a digital lens.
Mitali personally reaches out to each person who buys a pair of Chalos, hoping to learn more about their experience with her business. She takes these learnings and uses them to inform how she designs and evolves that experience. Thanks to digital connection, she is able to do this no matter where in the world her customers live.
This is how we can systematize connection in an authentic way, using technology to augment and facilitate deeper conversations. The distinction between one to one communication and one to many communication is very clear and very important online. An Instagram feed, a small WhatsApp group, and a one on one conversation offer different levels of opportunity for genuine connectedness.
Mitali also connects with customers offline, through initiatives like community driven pop-ups that brought together emerging designers, gallery owners, and women entrepreneurs in physical spaces in New York City, Mumbai, and Berlin. Spaces like this create the opportunity for repeated spontaneous interactions and organic connections.
What I’ve described is a slow and steady approach to building a business, connecting with customers, and building a community around shared philosophies and values across cultures and geographies. The digital aspect of our hybrid world can keep us connected in a way that the offline world does not- if we are thoughtful about it. And yet, there is a unique feeling of aliveness that comes from offline interactions, particularly those that are perhaps shaped and nurtured by design and structure but not specifically planned.
If you’d like to follow along Mitali’s journey building Chalo, you can subscribe to her newsletter for behind the scenes stories of her adventures and Chalo customers.