With tiny strides jewellery designer Limpuiru dreams big

By Jeijei Newme

IMPHAL | Sept 11

A self-employed, Limpuiru Gangmei, who is in her twenties has carved a niche for herself as a craft designer making traditional ornaments especially of Rongmei tribe and is self-sufficient with just crafts making.

She makes necklaces, bracelets, earrings, hairbands, hair jewellery and even other decorative items like vessels decorating with traditional touch and so on.

A resident of Dimdailong, New Checkon, Limpuiru is the eldest among four siblings and now earns around 20 thousand a month for her and her family. 

In an exclusive chat with the IFP, she opened up that she first started her ornaments designing when she saw that during festivals like Gaan-ngai and Christmas, girls love to doll up but with limited traditional accessories.

Limpuiru noticed her community has rich colours and unique beauty but is kind of just wasting away without any contemporary updates. She then decided to start adding modifications and make it more stylish and remarkable to go with the contemporary trends.

But it was not an easy journey when she first started, she revealed that she faced many hardships like non-availability of raw materials, financial problems, and lack of manpower as she started off alone and had to work really hard to meet the demands of the customers.

Limpuiru had no mentor to teach her, it was all her creativity and hard work that makes her reach where she is today and she is thankful of her family for their continuous support.  Earlier she had enrolled herself in Blue Ocean Academy, Imphal based fashion school in 2008 but could not complete because of certain circumstances.

“I was only following my passion for designing and also preserving the indigenous culture and rich traditional beauty of Rongmei tribe, marketing comes to mind later on,” she said.

Her creative, stylish, contemporary and chic designs attract every girl’s dream look in traditional attire and are hard to be overlooked as her ornamental works adds a whole new dimension to the traditional look, adding grace.

Her biggest break was Sangai festival 2015, getting exposure in a state level event and there she realised she had more demands and starting feeling good that her hard work and passion has paid off.

Now that she works with her two younger sisters, Jessy and Kelly Gangmei, she has a bigger market than before; Limpuiru wants to expand it and is currently attached with a shop at New Checkon area, opposite Brighter Academy. She also said that she is planning to double her stock for this coming November 21 Sangai festival 2017.

When asked if she took any help from the government, she said “No but plans to take help only when I am properly settled with my own personal shop first.”

She gets her raw materials from Keithelmanbi, Senapati, Silchar, Dimapur and Delhi. She gets full support from her family from the start and even now her parents do not force her to pursue government jobs or other jobs but instead help her sometimes in her work.

Her ornaments were used by participants in the recently concluded August 20 Mr. and Mrs. IAWA India, Manipur contest where four winners were selected to represent Manipur in the December 2 finale at Mumbai.