(AFP) -    A little brown mouse dressed in bright orange and blue is the mascot of a Sri Lankan family business successfully resisting the rat race of mass production and carving a lucrative niche overseas.

In sharp contrast to Sri Lanka's 2.6-billion-dollar textile and apparel export industry which depends on mass assembly line manufacture, the toys and handloom fabrics earn a tiny fraction of that amount.

Seventy-eight-year-old Barbara Sansoni has resisted mechanisation to focus on the labour-intensive cottage industry that gives jobs to poor rural women and is carving a lucrative niche overseas.

Sansoni, a designer, artist and writer, is the backbone of the "Barefoot" label that creates one-of-a-kind eye-catching fabrics known for their bold colours along with soft toys such as the mouse which was the company's first toy.

"My mother (Barbara Sansoni) hates to use the word 'factory'," said Barefoot director Dominic Sansoni.

"She says the company is run by human beings."

Barbara launched "Barefoot" in 1964, selling fabric and soft toys made by destitute women who were being helped by Roman Catholic nuns.

She and her small design team draw inspiration from the island's tropical flora and fauna and the nearby ocean.

They turn out sarongs, soft toys, clothing, home linen and bags and have  positioned Barefoot as an upmarket brand sought after by well-heeled Sri Lankans, diplomats and foreign visitors.

The Barefoot group now employs 700 -- mostly women -- working at seven weaving centres outside Colombo.

"We take work to women, not women to work," said the younger Sansoni. "In many rural areas, our weaving centres form the backbone of the local community."

Using more than 60 colours, Barefoot gives a plain cloth or "reddha" a distinct identity.

"You can hang the cloth on your window, watch the sun filter through the fabric to bring out the colours into your room, use it as a table top or wear it like a sarong," said Nazreen, who runs Barefoot with her husband Dominic.

   Barefoot's cotton and silk clothing lines, especially sarongs, are known for their geometric designs.

Handwoven cloth is used to make dolls, pink elephants, orange lizards, purple hippos, yellow tortoise and, of course, mice in various sizes.

The mouse is "still one of the most sought-after items 40 years later," said export manager Srianthi Constantine.

An expert seamstress takes two days to make one soft toy. A mouse retails for between 3.50 and 4.50 dollars.

"We don't really follow a global trend -- just craft toys that inspire us, or a client request which is then re-designed, using clashing colours to give it a distinctive look," said toy designer Preethi Hapuwatta.

Barefoot's main store is an elegant colonial-era house situated along Colombo's main seafront.

Exports have been ramped up to offset a drop in sales to foreign visitors as tourists stay away amid an escalation of Sri Lanka's 35-year-old ethnic conflict.

Barefoot mice go to Australia, France, Japan, the Maldives, Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States and Britain, helping the company earn revenues of around 2.3 million dollars a year.

International hotel chains such as the Four Seasons and Six Senses, use Barefoot fabric to furnish their resorts in the Maldives, the Middle East, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Four Seasons buys sarongs, toys and bags to use as guest giveaways and to sell at its retail outlets.

But despite its success, the company doesn't want to grow too big.

"We want to remain always a small company because the lifestyle that has been created for everyone working is too important to lose," said Dominic.