• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Interiors Addict

Heart Your Home

@interiorsaddict on Instagram   @interiorsaddict on Facebook   @interiorsaddict on Pinterest  
Subscribe
  • Job Board
  • About
  • Before & Afters
  • RENO ADDICT
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Kids Rooms
  • Bedrooms
  • Living Room
  • Shopping
  • Expert Tips
  • Recipes
  • Parenting
  • Travel
Interiors Addict
  • Job Board
  • About
    • Our Story

      Australiaโ€™s largest interior design, styling and renovation blog for the everyday Aussie. By former journalist and magazine editor Jen Bishop, the original interiors addict!
      READ MORE

      Weโ€™re big on Instagram!
      @interiorsaddict

      • About
      • Contact Interiors Addict
      • Work with Interiors Addict
      • Advertise / Find a job in Interiors
      • Press
      • Get Your Free Ebook

        This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
    • bookcover-jens-reno
  • By Room
    • Browse by Room

      Where you can search for all our posts about a specific room. Only interested in kitchens and bathrooms? We got you!

      • Kitchens
      • Bathrooms
      • Kids Rooms
      • Bedrooms
      • Living Room
      • Home Office
      • Dining
      • Laundry
      • Outdoor & Exteriors
      • Renting
    • bookcover-jens-reno
  • Before & Afters
    • Before & Afters

      Who doesnโ€™t LOVE a good before & after? If you want to be inspired by the whole reno process, and not just the shiny photos at the end, this is the place for you!

      View Articles

      • Before & Afters
      • Jen’s reno
      • Real Renos
      • RENO ADDICT
    • AFTER lounge80’s beach shack now an eclectic, retro-inspired holiday home
    • Tv-Removal-2_a-1Before and after: how to make the most of compact living
  • Reno Addict
    • RENO ADDICT

      Looking for reno inspo? Find it all here, from other peopleโ€™s projects to the latest trends, tools and products, whether youโ€™re DIY-ing or employing trades.

      View articles

      • Reno Products
      • The Block
      • DIY
      • Reno Trends
      • Before & Afters
      • Real Renos
    • AFTER lounge80’s beach shack now an eclectic, retro-inspired holiday home
    • AFTER kitchenKitchen reno proves space planning just as important as finishes
  • Shopping
    • Shopping

      Want to know where to buy the latest furniture, homewares, rugs, art and more? Weโ€™re always sharing our latest finds and telling you where you can buy them.

      View Articles

      • Furniture
      • Homewares
      • Art
      • Smart Home
      • Appliances
      • Reno Products
    • Greg Natale accessoriesGreg Natale debuts new lifestyle collection at Maison&Objet Paris
    • Joan BlondNew Aussie original art collection inspired by our endless summer
  • Inspiration
    • Inspiration

      While Jenโ€™s a legitimate interiors addict, sheโ€™s no design professional, so she calls on an army of the countryโ€™s best to share their expertise with you. Be inspired by their stories too!

      View Articles

      • Decorating 101
      • Interviews
      • Expert Tips
      • Before & Afters
      • House Tours
      • Designers
      • Styling
      • Renovating
      • Real Renos
      • Covet my coffee table
    • Screen Shot 2023-01-23 at 4.05.25 pmTerrazzo and character are in and grey is out, says designer
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle

      Weโ€™re mostly about the home but Jen also likes to share other things she thinks youโ€™ll love, like food and travel.

      • Recipes
      • Travel
      • Parenting
    • 0Q7A5539Foodie Friday: Confit salmon with preserved lemon & pomegranate
    • Burrawang HouseNew Hamptons style luxury retreat in the NSW Southern Highlands
  • Jobs
    • Advertise on our job board
    • Job Board FAQs for advertisers

“I’ve been putting sticks, stones and shells on cushions for years,” says Bandhini’s Tai Schaffler

January 16, 2013

FacebookPinEmailTweet

Maybe it’s the fact that she was once a journalist that makes Bandhini Homewear Design’s Tai Schaffler such a good interviewee. Or maybe it’s as simple as her passion for her business and the dying crafts of the people who hand make her products.

As an 18 year old, โ€œsmall town Kiwi girlโ€ Tai got a scholarship to study in Thailand, and her love affair with textiles began. โ€œI would drive the other students nuts, fossiking through the Jim Thompson Silk stores. God I loved that silk! Still do,โ€ she tells me. Her writing life started as a Christchurch correspondent for More Magazine.

She left journalism when Geraldine Sethi offered her a job in Perth to re-market and refurb her fashion business, Asaan. With a toddler and her husband in tow, Tai relocated to Perth and started traveling to India with her new boss. โ€œI was hooked on textiles,โ€ says Tai. โ€œNot clothes but cloth for homes.” It wasn’t long before she saw the potential to open her own home textiles label.

These days she heads up Bandhini, now in its 20th year. Key to its success has been the longstanding relationship between the Schafflers and another family, in India. โ€œI met Sangetta and Yuvraj Narain when I worked for Asaan and they were doing a stunning clothing collection called KALAKARI,โ€ says Tai. โ€œWe were totally on the same wavelength of quality, cultural and handmade soft furnishings. That was it, I wasn’t going anywhere else! I adore them.โ€

Both families’ children have now have joined the business, with Tai’s son Sharm and the Narains’ sons Sharan and Karan, heading up the team in the USA. โ€œThey have finally got our gusto!โ€ says Tai. โ€œI think they are more business orientated than us. The next generation take it to the next level. They want to keep it on the same page ethically though, that’s important.โ€

On that note, there’s a reason Bandhini’s stunning soft furnishing don’t come cheap. Quality is their integrity and everything has to be beautifully made and finished, by hand. โ€œWe support local cottage industry, that’s number one. None is displaced into factories. I couldn’t bear that. It is better than fair trade, it’s equal trade. All our guys run their own small units and we pay well. This is an industry in total threat. What we do now may not be possible in 20 years. Our weavers’ sons are not following their dads into their craft, they are going into IT or call centres. It’s a dying craft and I personally am doing everything I can to keep it alive and vital. We need these wondrous craftspeople.โ€ย Each piece of Bandhini is French-seamed and finished under the highest quality standards using all natural fibres except Rayon, which is derived from tree bark.

tai office
Eastern influences in Tai’s office

Far from taking a back seat, in Bandhini’s 20th year, Tai says she has never worked harder or traveled more. โ€œWe have showrooms in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Dallas, Los Angeles and Laguna, with some new ones in the USA coming up! I am very blessed to have my studio at home so the morning traffic is not bad! Trips to the USA are now 2-to-3 a year, plus India, plus Europe.โ€ It’s lucky she still loves what she does. โ€œWe have our beautiful Feng Shui architect-designed offices here in Tallebudgera Valley (QLD) and I am religious about my morning exercise, 7 days a week.โ€

Tai at work
Tai at work

Not surprisingly, her home is full of Bandhini. โ€œI have all the samples that didn’t quite work; my misunderstood children I call them, or vintage Bandhini that I am still nuts about.” She gave the architect the brief of wanting to live in a glass tent with an Australian aesthetic and eastern details. โ€œIt comprises of all pavilions: a living pavilion, a guest pavilion, a studio/office and workshop.โ€

Although consumers can buy Bandhini online, the brand is essentially a designer one, for a designer market. โ€œI want our product to be accessible to the general public but over the years there have been less and less retailers like the fabulous Hermon & Hermon (our champions, who have supported us for 20 years). When we started we were all about retail.”

The relationship with interior designers is very important. โ€œI work with them up close and personal. I need to know what they think and what they are looking for. Whenever we bring out a new collection, I will travel Australia to showcase our latest designs and meet our clients personally,โ€ says Tai. โ€œWe also have a special service that helps our designers with storyboarding and choosing the right soft furnishings to match the rest of the room they are decorating. They simply need to send us a picture of the room or furniture and we will send them a moodboard with BHD selections!โ€

When dreaming up or collaborating on new collections, Tai slips into a space which is almost like meditation. โ€œIt’s a matter of who is pulling down the ideas. They are flowing past us in the ether and it all depends who tunes in to the consciousness and hooks them in. Seeing them come to life is extraordinary.โ€ She loves the people she works with too. โ€œWithout people, what is life? I am definitely still a journalist in that way: I ask a lot of questions and love to hear others’ stories.โ€

She describes the Bandhini look as a cultural nature walk. โ€œWe take the best of what India crafts so beautifully and then strip it back to a western palette. I am obsessed with ancient cultures, that’s never left me, so there are big influences there, as well as living where we do in the country. Nature has an enormous play in it. I have been putting sticks, stones and shells on cushions for years.โ€

Tai doesn’t much care when Bandhini’s accused of being very black and beige and believes they do the best black cushion in town! โ€œBlack is a marvellous backbone in design. We always do colour. I have done lime, orange, oxblood red, blues and greens, in many hues for 20 years. Our collections are always intricately layered. I think people remember us for that and the detail, full of surprises and crazy ideas you didn’t expect. Put it this way, in 20 years I have never heard a single soul say they don’t like it!

โ€œWe could never be accused of selling pastels. And yellow? We couldn’t even give yellow away. I know it’s in all the magazines but tell me, who sells yellow?โ€

In terms of trends for 2013, Bandhini is all about geometric patterns. Orange is making way for copper and of course, emerald, and sheโ€™s pleased to see a return of her mate (and my personal favourite) navy. โ€œOur cultural experience this year is Japan. My grandmother always had Japanese pieces and I have had a deep love of kimonos so watch out for those in our new collection. Another trend you will see is patched fabric and we will revisit some retro Bandhini fabrics for our 20-year existence! Poor old chocolate has died a 1,000 deaths though.โ€

This week Tai’s flying to the States because Bandhini’s been nominated for an American Arts Award, quite possibly the only Australian company to have received such an honour. While she’s there she’ll showcase the latest designs to the Dallas market. โ€œAfter that I will fully focus on getting the 2013 collection finished and putting our 20 years of work in the spotlight when I travel Australia to showcase it. Our New Zealand agent changed last month so that is the start of an exciting year over in NZ and there will be another great agent joining the force over in the USA.โ€ Seems Tai’s not planning on sitting still for very long in the near future. It’s not in her nature.โ€

Bandhini are currently having a 20th anniversary sale online.

FacebookPinEmailTweet

Primary Sidebar

Popular This Week

  • Australian kitchen dimensions: standard sizes for every last detail
  • Palette Cam 15 apps to help you build your dream home
  • IKEA hacks Australia: DIY built-in HEMNES cabinetry how-to
  • The best places to buy Australian bed linen online
  • AFTER kitchen Kitchen reno proves space planning just as important as finishes

Follow us on Instagram

The renovation of this 80s beach shack @camillo_ho The renovation of this 80s beach shack @camillo_house is a work of art and while almost every surface was updated, the decision to keep the original slate floor was genius if you ask us. 

Owner @clarehillier__ says: "With its purple, pink, red and brown tones, the slate was the starting point for our interior palette."

Come and check out the before and afters via link in bio now and read the reno story. It's a real beauty.

And you can book it for your next holiday too!

Blair Smith Architecture @kateshanasy

#slatefloor #slatefloors #80shouse #80sbeauty #camillohouse #interiorsblog #interiorsblogger #interiorsaddict #theinteriorsaddict #jenbishop #realreno #holidayhousesofinstagram #morningtonpeninsulahomes #morningtonpeninsula #morningtonpeninsulasmallbusiness #blairgowrie #blairgowriebeach #airbnbstyle
Me and my boys ๐Ÿ’— Me and my boys ๐Ÿ’—
Just a couple of dorks who've been friends for thr Just a couple of dorks who've been friends for three decades going out for a child-free dinner ๐Ÿ’“๐Ÿ˜
Excuse me while I die of a cute attack ๐Ÿฅฐ @damia Excuse me while I die of a cute attack ๐Ÿฅฐ @damianfrancis 

This doesn't happen often these days!
Hello friends! Just thought I'd say hi. Two weeks Hello friends! Just thought I'd say hi. Two weeks since leaving hospital and I'm doing much better than I expected to be at this early stage. A long recovery road ahead but making progress in how much I can move my arm and although I drag myself through some days non-stop yawning, others I can go for a little walk or out for lunch before collapsing on the couch! I can now tie my own hair back and put on a real bra which is very exciting ๐Ÿคฃ Having my bestie here to help us with the boys, drive me places and just be brilliant positive company is the best thing I could have asked for not to mention the many Dinner Ladies vouchers from friends! Thanks for all your kind messages, cards, flowers, gifts and offers of help โค๏ธ
I definitely feel like a statistic now but hoping I definitely feel like a statistic now but hoping to raise some awareness off the back of my misfortune (and also very lucky escape).

@newsouthwaleshealth have just put out this warning about a rise in serious bacterial infections. iGAS (invasive group A streptococcus) is what caused my necrotising fasciitis and sepsis.

Apparently there's similar happening in VIC too.

It's extremely rare but very serious nonetheless so please have a read and be aware of symptoms. I've linked to the article from a button via my link in bio.

#interiorsaddict #jenbishop #necrotisingfasciitis #groupastrep #groupastreptococcus #sepsis
While new technologies continue to shape the inter While new technologies continue to shape the interior design scene, one that has been getting a fair bit of traction of late isย marble-look porcelain. A cheaper alternative to natural stone, the latest printed porcelain tile technology makes it difficult to distinguish from the real thing.

Founded by husband and wife duo Anton and Rita Bourtsev, Sydneyโ€™s @kaolintiles has a unique offering in this space with over 100 different marble-look tile designs in small and large formats.

More via link in bio now.

#porcelain #porcelaintile #porcelaintiles #largeformattiles #largeformattile #marblelooktiles #bathroomtrends2023 #interiorsaddict #theinteriorsaddict #heartyourhome #realrenovations #goldsink #brasssink #jenbishop #kaolin #kaolintiles #interiorsblog #interiorsblogger
Promise this is the last wretched hospital photo I Promise this is the last wretched hospital photo I'll post and I hope to be home and with my lippie back on by Monday. You know it's serious when I'm lipstick free, right?!

This was about a week ago in intensive care. And although my arm is still bloody sore I'm now on a normal ward and no longer attached to any drips, drains or a catheter. I've come a long way.

This has been the most physical and mental challenge of my life but I'm through the worst. I kept my arm. The doctors saved my life.

I cannot say it enough times. If you're worried about your health, don't hang around. Things can change so quickly. 

A huge thanks to my amazing husband @damianfrancis We've had the hardest year yet and our marriage has never been stronger, even if my rings did get cut off my finger in hospital ๐Ÿ˜œ

As great of a job as he is doing at home with the kids, I cannot wait to get home now. Countdown is on to a new year and a fresh start.

And I can't say enough just how overwhelmingly grateful I am to all the medical professionals involved in my care, from the @healthdirectaus nurse who sent me to Emergency to the exceptional surgeons, doctors, nurses and support staff.

Happy New Year, everyone. Remember you never know what's around the corner and this is not a dress rehearsal!

And huge thank you for all your kindness here. Has been amazing while stuck in bed.

Xxx

For those who missed it, I was unlucky enough to get necrotising fasciitis. You'll have to Google it.
The unluckiest girl or the luckiest? Day 6 in int The unluckiest girl or the luckiest?

Day 6 in intensive care after suddenly coming down with a very serious necrotising fasciitis in my elbow on Sunday. Four operations later (with more to come) I'm out of the woods, alive and have my arm. But I won't be going home until after Christmas. Also picked up a bonus bit of pneumonia to keep things interesting.

I won't lie. This has been super super hard but I feel extremely lucky nonetheless. Have come across some exceptional surgeons, anaesthetists, doctors and nurses who have been incredibly kind at my most vulnerable as well as great at their jobs. I'm really grateful. Huge thank you to my amazing husband who is holding down the fort with the help and cooking of our wonderful friends. And to friends who check in, send love, flowers, snacks and sushi, I will never forget it.

Of course I will be sad tomorrow but my boys can visit and we will have another Christmas next month.

I'll leave you with this. Never ever ignore those health niggles. @healthdirectaus is always a great starting point.

Wishing you all a merry Christmas and will enjoy everyone else's celebrations on here with only a hint of bitterness ๐Ÿ˜‰

PS. Does this win the most unflattering photo of me ever published? I think so! No lippy for a WEEK.
Follow on Instagram
Visit Jen's profile on Pinterest.

Get Your Free Ebook

Ebook cover

Never miss the latest renovating and interiors products, news and inspo again! Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send you the best bits from the blog, direct to your inbox. Plus you'll get our latest eBook: What Made The Biggest Impact in Jen's Own Reno.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Avatar

About Jen Bishop

Jen Bishop is our owner and publisher and an experienced journalist and editor. Interiors Addict has been her full-time job for more than 8 years. She is married to Damian and mum to Sebastian and Charlie.

More Recent Posts

AFTER lounge

80’s beach shack now an eclectic, retro-inspired holiday home

Terrazzo and character are in and grey is out, says designer

The Old Vicarage project

Designer profile: From expat childhood to high end interiors

AFTER kitchen

Kitchen reno proves space planning just as important as finishes

Greg Natale accessories

Greg Natale debuts new lifestyle collection at Maison&Objet Paris

Foodie Friday: Teriyaki miso chicken fried rice

Average cost to fix a botched DIY job is $1500

Outer team up with Queer Eye’s Bobby Berk on outdoor dining sets

Hardie exterior cladding

New exterior cladding product perfect for the Scandi-barn look

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarAnnie says

    January 16, 2013 at 6:26 pm

    Great interview Jen, what an inspiring lady. Annie x

  2. Avatarjasmine mansbridge says

    January 16, 2013 at 10:59 pm

    What a wonderful interview, I admire the passion and conviction behind the beauty and I am inspired, totally. Thank you Jen & Tai.

  3. AvatarMy Bespoke Chair - Emma says

    January 17, 2013 at 9:02 pm

    You had me at French seaming – as a fashion BA degree graduate, I know how strong those seams are and how much it stands for quality. It takes more time and effort to do a proper French seam than a simple running seam.

Footer

Interiors Addict

Interiors Addict

  • About
  • Contact
  • Work with Jen
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure Policy

Browse

  • RENO ADDICT
  • Jen’s Reno
  • House Tours
  • Real Renos
  • Interviews
  • Styling
  • Designers
  • Bedrooms
  • Covet My Coffee Table
  • Expert Tips
  • The Block
  • Art
  • Furniture
  • Recipes

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RENO ADDICT

Copyright © 2011–2023 Addicted Media Pty Ltd
Website care by ClickWP ยท Log in

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!