Met KARUNA BALLOO
Karuna Balloo, her name only was predicting that something magical would happen...
To tell you the whole story, I didn’t meet Karuna just at the street corner when buying my daily bread, I provoked fate. Everything started a few months ago, at Sacrés Coupons, the place where I buy my fabrics and other cloths filling my office. In this little shop from the rue d’Orsel, there is a huge bulletin board next to the counter where are pinned dozens of business cards and ads from faithful customers, and every time I’d pay instead of looking at the numbers fly, I’d daydream and loose myself on this board, and every time I’d see « Karuna Balloo, fabric horticulurist », so awesome... The small picture and the good turn of phrase piqued my curiosity so I asked Patricia, the awesome saleswoman working at that place I love, if she knows the mysterious Karuna. Of course she does, Patricia knows everybody or so, and she gave me her number. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it but I had it. I waited for the right time to contact her and these two special flowers weeks come at the right time...
So here I am, making an appointment to meet Karuna Ballo at her incredible workshop in Montreuil, I didn’t know what to expect. Well, long story short, I think I fall in love with her work, if such thing is ever possible...
Karuna Balloo what an exotic name, I ask her right away whether it’s a nickname or some sort of magic formula? Not at all, it is her real name... And it is under these beautiful inherited auspices that this Franco-Mauritius-Indian woman grew up, in a family of jeans-makers, she remembers that as a kid, she was already doing her homework seated on denim fabric rolls… Good omen for the rest of her studies, she went to the Applied Arts Superior Institutes then worked for several companies as a fabric designer for 10 years… After wrecking her eyes and her inspiration on a computer screen to create patterns and other wefts for the textile industry, Karuna decided to take embroidery night classes with Paris City Hall and then started her own business in textile accessorizes, getting rid of the computers and making something real and creative out of her 10 fingers.
Karuna is in love with the things of the past and the Japanese culture, she started collecting informations and archives, she spent a lot of time at the Forney Library, she went to garage sales looking for flowers and vintage items that would be able to nourish her inspiration. Karuna has developed her own style between passion for Japan and its Kanzashi art (fabric origami) and heritage with the discovery and acquisition of milliners’ antique furnitures, she is slowly but surely creating her job as « Fabric horticulturist »…
You can buy Karuna’s creations on her site but also on several retail shops that you can discover here. Every flower takes 2 hours to make and every petal is carefully fold by her, a real work of art… Karuna also makes special piece for weddings or other occasions, or even for your everyday life after all… I wish you to enjoy it as much as I did, I came out of this meeting feeling lighter than a feather with the desire to eat the world! Thank you Karuna!