Nitya Sawhney — Having a feeling for soulful products

The story

Nitya Sawhney owns a store in Belgium and goes only for soulful products.

—I loved your store from the first sight. How is this possible?

—I was born in that. My father started the business 50 years ago so I had a chance to travel a lot with my parents. That’s why I was really emerged into that. We really started with smaller businesses, we never went for very high-end people who are well established already. That was for me something that was quite important to do.

SOULFUL

We like to find an old item that is 80-100 years old that used to be in a house somewhere. These pieces have a living, they’ve been outside in a garden somewhere 80-60 years, it is worn off, it has defects, which is life defects or nature defects. And for us it has to stay like that. It’s part of the piece. It shows that the piece has a story behind it, has a living. Pieces I appreciate the most — for example, the collection of Buddhas from Burma, 17th-18th century. For me it has a soul. You can feel each and every piece I select is very important. The first thing I select is the face. The face has to be serene, very peaceful, so that when you look at the piece you really feel like you are relaxing. That is very very important. We have customers who we have educated also into these pieces.

For me it has a soul. You can feel each and every piece I select is very important.

When I buy these items, it is yes or no. You feel it or you don’t feel it. There is a connection that creates with the piece, it appeals to you. And that’s what I feel. When I go over there, I see the piece and although the supplier goes: this is a very nice piece, because, because, because, it can be the most beautiful, the most…if I don’t feel it, I won’t buy it. It’s all the question of feeling. This whole business is how you feel it.

A FEELING

— Are you always so in touch with your feelings? For example, I feel lost here in the exhibition because of too many items.

We are here now in front of carpets, and I have no feeling for carpet world. But when I am in my field, then it’s like it’s in me. Maybe it’s because of my education, my travelings, my background that I have this kind of feeling with these items.

SUPERPOWER

— What’s your superpower?

—I don’t think that I am a superhero. People say that I have a good eye for selection, for selecting the right items. I have been like that since 6-7 years old.

You can only sell well the product that you love, when you have feeling for the product you can sell anything, you can explain the heart and the soul of the product.

VALUES

We could’ve made maybe 10 times more money than we earn now. But this was not the most important thing in our life. We have all that we need. We live very well. But that’s it.

Honesty is the most important thing for me, that people can realise that you’ve always been honest and fair in all that you’ve been doing. That’s the most important.

Although the company is my soul and I put my heart into in, people’s values are much more important than a business.

A MOMENT FROM OUR DIALOGUE