With its newly painted woodwork and bunting hanging in the window, it may look like a new addition to the shops in Bristol's Gloucester Road.
Replica Chanel Watches However, the Bishopston Trading Company store has been in business for 25 years, during which time the shop has become a co- operative and has doubled in size.
There are also other branches now trading in Bradford on Avon, Malmesbury, Totnes and Glastonbury.
And until mid-August, there will also be a Bishopston Trading Company shop at 14 Clifton Down Road, in Clifton Village, selling the company's Fair Trade organic cotton goods at reduced prices.
Meanwhile, in the Indian village of K V Kuppum, in Tamil Nadu, South India, there are now more than 200 hand loom weavers, where there were just six back in 1985. They earn above the average wage and have benefits including health care and a creche.
"It shows the real difference that Fair Trade can make," says Carolyn Whitwell, who came up with the idea of linking the Bristol suburb of Bishopston with an Indian village. So why did she embark upon what was an ambitious scheme by today's standards, let alone back in the Eighties? "I'd worked in India with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) and thought it would be a good idea to have a link," says Carolyn, 68, a mother of three, who is still one of the directors of the co-operative.
"I heard about an Indian doctor who'd had a similar idea and had just started a development project in a village. His name was Daleep Mukarji, and he is now director of Christian Aid. The village was K V Kuppum.
Sexy Costumes "It was 1978, and we'd only thought about writing letters and sending photos, but he was much more ambitious and was talking about people from the UK coming out to the village to visit.
"About seven years into the link we were discussing with leaders in the village about projects we could help them with.
"One of them said: 'It's not charity we want, it's work', and I had the idea that we could start trading with them.
"Then I had to think of a product that could be traded, as it's not one of those areas where they make fine carpets.
"I hadn't visited the village at that stage, but other people who had had brought back material made by the local hand loom weavers."
The Bishopston Trading Comnpany collection now includes children's and adults clothes, bed linen, cushions, toys, laundry bags and gifts.
The items are all designed by Carolyn and marketed in the UK, but they are made in K V Kuppum, where 15 tonnes of organic cotton is produced each year.
In addition to the 230 tailors there is also a craft unit, set up in 1989, which has 14 members who make jewellery, Fake Bedat & CO cards and printed cloth.
"The people we employ in India become comfortably off," says Carolyn.
"Because of Bishopston Trading, about 300 people employed by our manufacturing partners in India get a fair income and other advantages, such as childcare and health grants."
For further information about Bishopston Trading Company go to .
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