I don’t think hand made means expensive. In a Western example, I had a sport jacket made and it cost about as much as what I would have found at the store (which are hand made too, just in another far away place).
In another example is glassware. Almost everywhere it is still hand made using the same processes as hundreds of years ago. I’ve seen factories that look identical (except for size) in China, India, Poland and Romania. I bet there are even a few in the US and Canada. This is unlikely to change too. It turns out that it is really hard to do mechanically and expensive to adjust machinery to make multiple designs. And this is a product that can be bought for $.99 at Ikea!
Louis: The article wasn’t really about this. It was about the various projects Bangle’s firm has worked on with this quote at the end.