Los Angeles, California (Atwater Village; printed in Jaipur, India) · Est. 2013 · Founded by Hopie & Lily Stockman
Hopie and Lily Stockman grew up in New Jersey with three sisters, spending summers at weaving camp and hours in the garage painting, knitting, and sewing. In 2010 Lily moved to Jaipur after Harvard to study miniature painting and met Viju – a fifth-generation block printer whose craft had been passed down through his family for generations. Hopie flew over, fell in love with the ancient technique, and in 2013 the sisters founded Block Shop in Los Angeles. Thirteen years later, three of the four Stockman sisters work there, no outside capital has ever been taken, and every textile is still hand block-printed in Jaipur by the same artisan families.
It was there that a mutual connection introduced her to Viju, a fifth-generation block printer whose family had been practicing the craft for generations. The skill is passed down through apprenticeships, from parent to child, the carved wooden blocks themselves becoming heirlooms. Lily started collaborating with him. Then she called Hopie. Hopie flew to India, fell completely in love with what she found, and the two came home to Los Angeles to build a brand around it.
Block Shop launched in 2013 in partnership with a co-op of Jaipur block printers and has never taken a dollar of outside capital. Thirteen years later it remains a team of twelve – including three of the four Stockman sisters – working from a light-filled studio and retail space in Atwater Village that they designed entirely themselves. Five percent of profits goes to community initiatives in Jaipur and Los Angeles, partnering with local NGOs to provide educational and healthcare resources to the communities the brand’s work touches.
Every textile is hand block-printed in Jaipur using carved wooden blocks and natural dyes – a process that cannot be scaled and cannot be automated, where each piece is infinitesimally different from the next. Table linens, napkins, scarves, robes, bedding – all made by artisan families who have been doing this their whole lives. On a registry, Block Shop is the table linen that gets more beautiful every time it’s washed – and carries a story that goes back five generations before it ever reached your door.
