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“The three trillion-dollar fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world, after oil. It accounts for significant amounts of chemical runoffs, affluents from dyes, heavy pesticide usage and the creation of methane gas, which leads to the warming of the planet,” states Madhu Jain, senior fashion designer, who has been in the business for over 30 years.
According to the Geneva Environment Network, fashion production makes up 10 per cent of humanity’s carbon emissions, dries up water sources, and pollutes rivers and streams. What’s more, 85 per cent of all textiles go to the dump each year (UNECE, 2018), and washing some types of clothes sends significant amount of microplastics into the ocean.
In fact, Madhu says, to grow enough cotton for a single T-shirt, 2,700 litres of water is needed to irrigate cotton plants. “Even organic cotton is as water-intensive and, on a planet where water is fast becoming a rare commodity, it seems almost criminal to wear clothes,” she adds.
A craft revivalist and textile conservationist by passion, Madhu’s forte is eco-fashion and sustainability, which is underlined by her creation of the first-of-its-kind textile bamboo silk ikat—“a textile which is 100 per cent biodegradable and will not clog landfills for 200 years.”
Besides, fast fashion negatively impacts the environment in many different ways.
“First of all, the very consumption pattern that fast fashion is all about, where there are 52 drops (micro-season) in a year, itself is harmful for the environment because it allows for you to buy pieces very quickly. It doesn’t ask you to consume slowly, consciously, you are overconsuming and probably buying pieces maybe to wear just once, maybe twice. So, the style of consumption or fashion it promotes is inherently harmful for the environment and frankly, not very stylish either,” says Sujata Assomull, Dubai-based fashion journalist, advocate of mindful fashion and launch editor of Harper’s Bazaar India.
“Of course, the pieces are then mass-made and to keep prices low they often use fabrics which are really harmful for the environment and leave toxins behind. Fast fashion also, often because of fabrics used, requires more water to wash. The consumption that fast fashion perpetuates and encourages is really just something not healthy for the environment; it’s not even healthy for a human being to feel that
they have to keep up with trends and fashion so fast. I think the whole thing is putting pressure on the environment, consumer and the supply chain. It’s a system that needs to be fixed,” says Sujata.
She further shares the difference between fast and super-fast fashion: “The fact that from fast fashion we’ve gone on to super-fast fashion and that it is doing so well is very worrisome. It really concerns me as to what’s next—from super-fast fashion, where are we headed and how the cycle can get any faster or produce clothes made of worse fabrics.”
We need to change our consumption patterns and move towards textiles and fibres which do not deplete the planet. This week, HT Brunch turns the spotlight on four bright minds from across the country who are lending new meaning to mindful fashion by designing everything from apparel to home décor using things like reclaimed teakwood, carpet textile waste, discarded rubber from tubes and tyres and more, without compromising on look and feel.
The designer who uses reclaimed teak wood to create jewellery
Ever imagined that feather-light jewellery could be made from reclaimed teak wood blocks that are usually discarded after a house is constructed? Radhika Malhotra’s SATAT is doing just that; she’s been making these unique pieces since 2017 and has even showcased at Milan Design Week.
Priced between ₹ 1,099 and ₹ 5,000, her sustainable jewellery sells through multiple retail channels. Though there’s no dedicated physical store yet, Radhika retails her jewellery through domestic fashion and jewellery online portals like Ogaan and Jaypore and stores like Nimai. Internationally, her designs are available on websites such as Dubai-based Dori, The Jewel Jar, Paprika and stores like Iris Trends in Chicago, just to name a few.
The venture is successful, and Radhika has also launched a clothing line. She intends to take her brand to every part of the world for people to see the intricacy and beauty of the work of Indian artisans—work that comes with the added benefit of sustainability.
Always having been a sustainability enthusiast, Radhika realised that jewellery was something she never saw being incorporated with sustainability.
“This made me think about starting a venture where I can incorporate sustainability into jewellery and other accessories. I wanted to make jewellery with materials that were reclaimed or waste that I could reuse. So, I started searching for artisans and people doing such kind of work using that medium and came across a cluster of artisans that are doing this. We incorporated the idea, clubbed it, innovated the process and that’s how it began,” Radhika shares.
At the time, there was no other accessory brand in India that was using sustainability as its core concept. “I came across this beautiful craft inspired from the two-century-old practice of making printing blocks. But we upgraded it to fit it into the jewellery-making space. Block-making is functional, and a lot of things are considered while making the blocks. So, we extracted the wood-carving part and innovated it accordingly, and use only natural materials to colour the pieces that are made from scratch by karigars. This really highlights the sustainability aspect,” Radhika explains.
Of course, she also wondered if recycled or upcycled jewellery would appeal to people, but she stuck to her guns and went ahead. “The jewellery came out very attractive and easy for me to launch. Customers were really intrigued by it being handcrafted and sustainable,” says Radhika, who has a Bachelor of Design in fashion and lifestyle accessories from the National Institute of Fashion Technology.
The designer who successfully brought luxury and sustainability together
While doing research for her final examinations at design college, Sanah Sharma devised a technique to cut clothes that not only eliminated waste, but also brought down the quantity of the fabric required by 40 per cent.
The reason Sanah started doing research in the sphere was because she felt, as a designer, she didn’t see any new silhouettes being created. “I was only seeing a lot more innovation in material; the ways we were making the garments remained pretty much the same. It felt pretty monotonous and I wanted to find newer ways of making things. That’s when I came across renowned pattern cutter Prof. Julian Roberts, who became one of my inspirations. After I created my technique, I got in touch with him to know if it was relevant and ever since then, in 2015, we are in touch,” she shares.
Sanah’s process is unique in that she plans the pattern and designs in a way where she has full control over resource efficiency.
“That’s how I’m able to do 100 per cent zero-waste as opposed to the typical design process. We don’t ready the sketch and then have the designer create a sketch of what the garment should be and then work on the patterns to cut that in fabric. We plan the result,” she explains.
“I was researching sustainable brands and it felt like we were making it seem like we had to compromise on aesthetics simply because of the use of sustainable materials,” Sanah says. “But why should people who are interested in sustainability have to be apologetic about being fashion savvy? The gap I wanted to fill was that we can have sustainable fashion which is true fashion and not an oxymoron.”
This belief was proved when a dress she designed won the Red Carpet Green Dress Global Design Contest 2020 and was then showcased at the 2022 pre-Oscars festivities in Los Angeles.
The foundation stones of Sanah’s sustainable story lie in her amalgamation of concepts of physics and maths with pattern making. Initially, she started by focussing only on waste reduction in the process of cutting. Now she has a pret line featuring luxurious garments with certified materials and high price points.
“There’s also an upcycled line called Made From Nothing, made from upcycled saris we collected during the pandemic,” says Sanah. “Apart from that, we work with recycled handloom materials made by women weavers.”
A BA (Hons) in Fashion Design from Nottingham Trent University and Pearl Academy, Sanah is currently pursuing Design Thinking at Stanford Graduate Business School and runs her eponymous label.
The winner of the Zero-Waste Design Competition, Fakulteta za dizajn (Slovenia) 2018 and the R|Elan Award for Excellence in Circularity, Sanah was also invited to be part of the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network alongside Swarovski, Tencel, etc. She’s now getting into the digital space by launching her own metaverse.
The designer who uses carpet waste and econyl to create modular fashion
Gorakhpur-born and multiple award-winning sustainable fashion designer Pratyush Kumar uses carpet waste textile—or cartex—to make apparel, footwear and bags. He also creates outerwear and accessories from econyl, recycled polyester, and deploys 3D printing for his modular eyewear range.
“These have a longer lifespan because if any one part gets damaged, it can be replaced since customers can buy small parts. Our footwear is modular too,” says Pratyush, who was the first Indian designer to partner with Cartoon Network and the only one to have represented India at the Fashionology Summit in Dhaka.
Pratyush started his namesake label three years ago to generate enough revenue to launch his sustainable business. “In 2020, I began Pieux and when the lockdown happened we had to shut it down. But I used the next two years to do research and came across carpet waste,” he shares.
What made him interested in cartex? “As a designer I thought of exploring the home décor industry, under which carpets are an integral part. I realised there are millions of tonnes of carpet waste being generated every year and that started the whole process of looking into what the small and big manufacturers are doing with the waste—we started procuring all that waste yarns, knitted and weaved to make cartex textiles, and in the future we want others to source cartex from us so more and more people can use it,” he elaborates.
If he doesn’t reveal they are made from carpet waste or damaged shirts, you can’t tell that his pieces are sustainable. “What people buy is what appeals to them without knowing it is sustainable and we are purposely not talking about this! However, the biggest challenge I face is with sequins. We can’t use them as they are made from plastic, so we are working with a few professors to create biodegradable sequins,” he shares.
Pratyush has been working on mindful fashion for 13 years now. It started when he was in his second year of college at Pearl Academy, when they went to Orissa for a week to study the craft of Pattachitra artists.
“The artists were using colours extracted from nature and creating their art on palm leaves. Everything was biodegradable and good for the environment. After returning, I thought even I could create something sustainable that conveys the message of art, and that’s when I created my first piece made from organic viscose and dyes. Plus, the same outfit could be worn in three different ways, which is also a way of depicting sustainability as a person can buy one instead of three products,” says the designer.
For this piece, the designer was selected to participate in the DEFRA x The Centre for Sustainable Fashion project, an initiative by the Ministry of Textiles, the London College of Fashion and Pearl Academy.
When he went to the UK to do his Masters from De Montfort University in 2012, he was influenced by Stella McCartney, the biggest name in sustainable fashion. “She was creating mind-blowing pieces using materials that no one could tell were sustainable or luxury,” he says.
This year, after winning the Clean Tech Challenge as well as the Circular Design Challenge, Pratyush is looking forward to fashion week in October and is planning to expand his capsule collection of sustainable home décor.
The designer who set out to change the narrative
Sudheer Rajbhar, who began his career as an artist’s assistant, forayed into the field of design of which he had zero knowledge at the time, with the intent of bringing artisans—especially leathersmiths—into the mainstream.
“The word ‘chamar’ is a slur in India and the government has banned it. After the 2015 beef ban, there was a shortage of leather in the industry and when I visited villages, people called me a chamar. So, I thought why not make it a brand and one day it could be like Chanel, Dior or Stella McCartney,” he says.
“Since people believed that they only make leather products, I launched the label Chamar to change this perception,” says Sudheer. “The craftsmen produce the same products, but they use new and sustainable media. For example, we make bags from rubber recycled from waste tubes and tyres, and recently, for Lakme Fashion Week, we designed footwear for the first time and displayed it as a prototype.”
The designs are contemporary for the sake of visibility, says the designer. “Motifs of butterflies and flowers might work in India, but in Europe nobody will appreciate them!” he smiles.
A diploma holder in the fine arts of drawing and painting, Sudheer found an error in the system when he realised that there was no recognition for artists’ assistants. To address this problem, he curated a show in 2017 called We Are Here Because You Are There, which exhibited not only the work of established artists, but their assistants.
“This is how the idea of sustainability and the need for artisans to be part of the movement came to my mind. When I curated the show, nobody understood the idea behind it. It was only after I launched the Chamar project that they noticed the purpose of the show,” he shares.
Now, Sudheer is in the process of establishing an atelier set-up where a roadside cobbler can sit and make bags using industrial waste and people can come and hang out with him to get a feel of the entire process.
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Lubna Salim is the chief content producer with Brunch. A lifestyle journalist for seven years, she writes on fashion, food, travel and all things luxurious. ...view detail
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