Emma Inns, owner of Adorit Boutique, says that travelling to India after high school “changed my life.” Deeply affected by the plight of the Tibetans, she decided to use her own good fortune to bring kindness and compassion to others.
Emma came back to Canada to earn a degree in tourism and then returned to Tibet as a tour guide, saving her money to set up microfinance programs in Tibetan communities. “The concept was to take traditional crafts and tweak them to make them marketable to the Western eye,” she explains.
Returning to Canada once again, Emma opened a stall in the ByWard market where she could selling the Tibetans’ crafts. These items, including puppets and handbags, were made with the same felting process used to make traditional aprons for Tibetan women on their wedding day. “It was great,” Emma says, “but I realized that if I only sold Tibetan stuff I would be hungry.”
In 2007, Emma decided to expand her business and moved to a converted row house close to her original stall. She named her new boutique Adorit. “I had a vintage scarf from the ’40s with a tag: ‘Made exclusively for Adorit,’” she says. “I thought that’s such a cool name. I never want people to buy something they don’t love and won’t wear.”
Emma encourages a “less is more” sustainable mindset, selling sustainable and fair trade clothing, jewellery and handicrafts. She wants to sell only things that make customers say, “I adore it.”
