Meet the Team

Get to know the story behind the team of Banarsi Designs and how a vacation trip of one couple turned into a business trip, leading to the beginning of an exciting road ahead.

Pavel and Yuli from Banarsi Designs

Our Story

In March 2012, our journey to travel from Boston, Massachusetts to Dubai was set in motion and we were ready to explore a whole new country and culture. What was intended to be just a vacation turned into a business trip when we discovered a store in the historic part of Dubai selling the most beautiful and luxurious textiles and fabrics like no other that we have ever seen.

In that moment, we never had the slightest thought of business on our minds, whatsoever. It wasn’t until we started talking to an employee of the store, whose uncle was the store owner. We ended up talking about many different things and quickly became friends. We enjoyed drinking some of the most amazing Indian tea together and learned that the beautiful products we saw in the store all come from India.

We thought how great it would be to bring these products to the United States due to their extremely unique and decorative appearance. Sure, we’ve seen decorative products being sold in USA, but the level of beauty we saw in Dubai was overwhelming and there was simply no comparison.

After giving the idea some thought while being on our vacation, we strongly began dreaming on forming our own business to offer these products to the USA.

One day before our scheduled flight back home from Dubai, a deal was finalized to bring over 900 products back with us and we were ready to begin creating our vision for our new business! Surely, this was a very exciting time for us. We were entering an area of business we had no experience with in the past but we were determined and believed in the products.

From Vision to Reality

We were now on our early morning flight from Dubai and heading back home to Massachusetts. One great thing about having a 14 hour flight is it gives you plenty of time to think!

We spent hours on the plane brainstorming ideas of what we would want to name our new business, and this was how the name “Banarsi Designs” was created.

The Road Ahead

After being back in USA, it was time to move quickly. We opened an LLC (Limited Liability Company), registered a P.O box and opened a business account with our local bank in Massachusetts.

Our vision for Banarsi Designs was to offer these home décor products through an online store to people and to businesses like hotels, restaurants, and event planners to bring a new level of unique décor, no matter what the occasion is. Our motto was always to THINK BIG.

As the entrepreneur Donald Trump once said:

I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big -Donald Trump

With 900 products that we received, it was time to take the photos and develop a brand identity for our business, both online and offline. We expected things to move along smoothly and quickly, but we learned that everything wasn’t as easy as we thought.

A night of shooting product photos

With so many color combinations that we now had in our hands, this meant a lot of pictures needed to be taken for our website, which led to many long days and nights, Latin music, and strong coffee.

At first we thought: how hard can photography really be? Just shoot the picture on a table and you’re done, right? Oh man, were we in for a rude awakening!

Shooting photos of our products as table runners, tablecloths, bedding sets, and so on turned out to be one of the most challenging aspects over the next 6 months (besides establishing a new brand and creating a website from scratch). After trial and error with multiple digital cameras, we quickly realized that in order to do things the right way, we had to invest in a professional camera. Getting the right shot during the initial phases turned out to be a not-so-easy task. We had to do a lot of research on lighting techniques, and how to deal with shadows and camera features. Over the next coming weeks we spent hours on photography forums to get a better handle on the entire process.

We created a brand identity and continued to work as efficient as we could, encountering challenges along the way, while putting all of the pieces together in place. After getting all pictures, inventory, and other responsibilities done, additional unexpected tasks continued to appear as well as new obstacles that required time and effort to be resolved. Towards the end of September of 2012, we approached the end of an exciting initial phase which was to launch “Banarsi Designs” to the public. On October 4th, 2012 we have officially began our operations out of Massachusetts.

More projects are waiting ahead in time, and we continue to work hard and keep dreaming big to accomplish our great goals and succeed with every task; no matter what the setbacks may be, we have been learning that nothing is easy but with great courage and faith, we move forward and look to the future ahead!

Our most important goal is to provide an excellent experience for our customers. Therefore, if you have any feedback or inquiries, we would love to hear from you.

We hope you fall in love with our products the way we did. Discover and explore our unique collection, and transform your surroundings into a display of art with Banarsi Desings!

~ Yuli and Pavel