Is Sustainable Fashion Affordable?

08 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Published: The Voice of Fashion, November 8, 2018

Breaking through the misconceptions and myths about the cost of a sustainable garment, what are the practical considerations for a greener wardrobe?

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Between the tempting bait of fast fashion price tags and the cost burden of a sustainable garment, a shopper is less likely to make the environmentally-friendly choice. Add to that, are things like accessibility and post-purchase care of a sustainable garment. “Wearing it would in itself be a chore and something that needs planning. It’s not quick and easy,” says marketing professional Shaista Vaishnav. Inspired by a talk by strategist and curator, sustainable fashion at IMG Reliance/Lakmè Fashion Week, Gautam Vazirani, Vaishnav has been trying to turn her wardrobe green.

A sustainable garment would necessarily cost more than a fast-fashion garment because it nurtures the supply chain—from using eco-sensitive materials to non-chemical dyes, from handcrafted elements to providing artisans with fair wages. Even storing waste fabric to be reused later adds to the cost of the garment. The only way fast-fashion companies can sell clothes at the rock-bottom rates they do is by cutting corners elsewhere. Mass-produced garments with cheap synthetic fabrics and harsh chemical dyes are placing an irreversible burden on the planet, and the lack of fair wages and decent working conditions for garment workers has become a chronic concern in manufacturing countries like India, China, Cambodia and Bangladesh.

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A Sustainable Philosophy
Perhaps because of these vast considerations, Deepshikha Khanna, head of apparel at Good Earth Sustain, is of the belief that choosing ‘sustainable’ is more about buying into the philosophy than it is about buying a product. When you understand why it costs so much—the time and effort that went into making that garment—then you are aware of its post-purchase care. Adds Khanna, “People commonly believed that sustainable fashion isn’t stylish, it is rustic. This has changed. Some of the softest sustainable fabrics like Khadi muslin are setting trends all over the globe today.”

Philosophy it may be, but Vazirani takes it a step further, suggesting that sustainable fashion—especially that which is made in India—is not merely fashion, it is akin to a work of art. He says, “If someone who is buying a hand-spun, hand-woven or hand-dyed/printed outfit were to understand the level of work that goes into making it by the artisans and their families, they would never be able to tighten their purse strings. It will also be difficult to discard the pieces or have the constant desire to keep buying new. You start looking at your wardrobe as a custodian of culture, heritage and sheer dexterity of human skills. You will accept the price, as it is not just an expensive tag or brand that you are paying for, but respect for someone’s labour.”

Perhaps for that reason, despite the range of fair-trade, organic garments abroad, Vaishnav finds the choices to be more in India. “I realised that I would rather spend ₹5,000 on a garment and have 12-15 good pieces, than buying five easily-spotted fast-fashion pieces for that price.” And that is what design consultant and stylist, Ekta Rajani suggests: “Excessive consumption can be replaced by considered consumption.”

Worthy Investment
Rajani’s Instagram posts are captioned with details of the number of times a garment has been worn. She says, “I like the term, ‘something old, something new’, where two pieces may be old, but one might be new.” Swapping clothes is also a great way to keep the wardrobe fresh. Mumbai witnessed its first-ever clothes swap on October 6 with 130 items swapped in six hours. Says Dhawal Mane, Global Fashion Exchange Ambassador for India, “Wardrobes are underutilized—swaps encourage extending the useful life of the apparel.”

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Aneeth Arora, founder of slow-fashion brand, péro, feels that offering two garments in one is another way to think about sustainability. The designer says, “With slow or upcycled fashion, the piece itself may appear to be expensive, but by investing in one good piece as opposed to multiple fast-fashion pieces, your overall expense is reduced.” She points out that a reversible jacket may itself be more expensive than a fast-fashion jacket, but the quality with which it is produced as well as the fact that it is reversible allows for longevity and multiple wears or looks.

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Rajani finds ways to think creatively about her wardrobe. “With old products, you need to be a little bit more imaginative. For instance, figuring out how to wear the same trouser in five different ways: with a skirt, shirt, tunic, sneakers or heels. The beauty of the times we live in is that there are no rules. If you like a look, you can figure out—by taking a couple of extra steps—how to achieve it with what you already have in your closet. Even if you buy trendy pieces, buy them of better quality, so they last.”

While the change needs to extend from demand to supply, it must also come from within. Arora finds that people are becoming more conscious about what they are buying and at what price. But, as Vazirani points out, “Sustainable fashion cannot be equated with price, it’s real value is the impact a consumer can have on human lives through their purchase.”

 

Many Indian Schools Post Photos of Kids on Public Accounts Without Parental Permission

05 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by in Features & Trends, Parenting, Publication: The Swaddle

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Published: The Swaddle, November 5, 2018.

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Cherubic kids with angelic smiles — feel-good photos like these make for free marketing fodder and glorious social media feeds. In India, educational organizations are not mandated to take permission — and most do not attempt to do so — before posting images of students on public platforms. In other parts of the world, it is considered best practice to do so; Webwise, the Irish Internet Safety Awareness Centre, outlines a policy that includes taking written consent from parents or carers before photographs of students are published anywhere. So, why aren’t Indian schools doing it?

“No one has ever asked to not have their child’s images posted,” says an administrator at a private Mumbai school that posts students’ photos on its public social media platforms and does not have an official consent process in place. “I don’t see any risks in posting on a school’s official Facebook or Instagram account or website. Names are never used,” says the administrator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “So, I don’t think there is any difference between a photo or seeing children out on a trip wearing a school uniform. All it does is say that the child is in a particular school. People seem proud to have their child identified with a school.” The administrator went on to compare the school’s posts to parents’ posts of children on their own accounts and YouTube channels.

The difference is, of course, that parents (in most cases) are children’s legal guardians. Yet most organizations share a similar reason for not seeking parental permission: parents, they say, are pleased to have their children showcased. Chhandam Nritya Bharati, a Kathak school in Mumbai and Kolkata, asks for permission from parents only if an image highlights a specific student, not while posting group photos and videos taken of the students during class or at a performance. Says Prachi Wagh, head of marketing for the school, about its public Facebook and Instagram accounts, “No individual names or pictures are highlighted or identified by us. Parents are on our social media lists and are aware of all social media activity.”

Hackberry Kids, a children’s educational organization, does ask for consent to post photos on their public Instagram and Facebook accounts — at the end of an email sent to the parents with other program information. “Most parents do not respond to the emails and seem to be fine with their kids’ images shared on social platforms. About 15 to 20% of the parents are not comfortable,” says co-founder, Anisha Parikh, of the school’s opt-out, rather than opt-in, policy. “In today’s digital world, parents are constantly posting images of their kids online. Each parent is entitled to decide if they want to share their child’s image and should be aware of the risks involved. Today, most children have their own digital footprint, whether we like it or not.”

Taking a cue from ‘sharenting’

Statistically, more than 80% of children are said to have an online presence by the age of two — long before they are school-aged. In a world of ‘sharenting’ the average parent shares almost 1,500 images of their child online before their fifth birthday.

Chef Shilarna Vaze unveils the life of her year-old daughter, Zanskar Stella Perrin on her public social media account. When asked about the concerns over risks she says, “People are getting paranoid about social media these days, but it’s insignificant when you consider the larger picture of the safety of children from offline predators in India.”

That may not be true. In 2015, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that half of the 45 million images found on some pedophile image-sharing sites were innocent photos of children — kids on holiday, doing homework or opening Christmas presents — originally posted on social media and family blogs, according to an Australian Children’s eSafety Commissioner. “Within 10 days of being uploaded, the content had been viewed 1.7 million times and comments had been posted that explicitly sexualized the material,” said the Commissioner.

In the same Herald piece, cyber-safety expert Susan McLean said, “It does not matter how innocent the photo is, if your child has got what a predator is looking for, they will take that photo.” European police have begun posting Facebook warnings against the dangers of sharenting: The background of a child’s photo — the visible street signs, shopfronts and school logos — act as digital breadcrumbs that lead to an easily-accessible, real-world entry point into that child’s life for would-be predators.

Blogger Nidhi Mundhra blurs the face of her daughter, Aranya, on public platforms, but frequently posts about her freely on private social media accounts. She says, “I avoid putting details or clues about her school or our address. I haven’t objected to some classes putting her picture as they don’t have lots of followers.”

But privacy settings don’t guarantee control. Facebook and other related sites can share users’ personal data with advertisers — data that could include, say, the type of toy a child is playing with in a photo — while as of July 2015, Instagram’s policy retains full rights to all photos users post.

Whose decision is it?

Which leads to concerns about privacy, not just safety — concerns that relate to “identity theft (privacy risks), digital harvesting of kids’ images on predator sites (cyber-safety risks), sharing personal information about your child that should remain private (psychosocial risks), and revealing embarrassing information that may be misappropriated by others (psychological risks),” Kirsty Goodwin, researcher and author of Raising Your Child in a Digital World, wrote on her blog last year.

Today, children have a digital imprint when they are barely out of the womb. “As children’s-rights advocates, we believe that children should have a voice about what information is shared about them if possible,” says Stacey Steinberg, a legal skills professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, in American multimedia news site, NPR.

Mundhra doesn’t believe her 6-year-old is ready to make decisions about platforms she doesn’t understand. She says, “As I don’t show her face on the public page, I don’t see why she would mind. On my private page, I don’t ask her, but she does seem annoyed when people tell her they saw her diving or cooking on Instagram.”

In the end, it may be neither schools nor parents that decide how freely children’s photos should be shared, but technology. Facial recognition technology is becoming advanced — Facebook already has this in place with the contentious DeepFace. In the future, a photo online may act as a digital password. Would you share your passwords as freely as you do — and allow others to — your child’s photos and identity? And which one should be protected the most?

Who Stole The Dupatta?

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

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Published: The Voice of Fashion, October 31, 2018.

Is the dupatta today relegated to being an emblem of archaic femininity and an ornamental accessory?

The dupatta, an iconic part of the Indian fashion lexicon, has lost its original raison d’être and has seen a transformation in urban India, to become a modern fashion accessory. The soft fabric worn flowing over the shoulders may have been often picturised romantically, as billowing gently—and occasionally coyly—in the breeze, but is, in reality, an exaggerated symbol of captive femininity and more importantly, female modesty. An integral part of the fabric of Indian society, conventionally, it forms a ‘ghoonghat’ or veil as a mark of respect in front of elders and at a place of worship, or protection from the unwanted male gaze.

The Creative Destruction

Connected to traditional garments of the Indian subcontinent like the lehenga-choli and the salwar kameez, the origin of the dupatta has been traced to the Indus Valley civilization. As the garment celebrates local embroidery and craftsmanship, for someone working in the handloom industry, the evolution of the dupatta is worrisome. Ritu Sethi, chairperson of the Crafts Revival Trust, addresses the change: “I delight in the fact that the original function of covering one’s head and bosom is no longer required, yet paradoxically, as a purist, I moan its passing.” She explains, “The lighter, airier weave of a dupatta is different from the rest of the suit length—reflecting in the elegance of its fall and drape, and its border and two-sided pallus. The yarn is produced specifically for the dupatta. What are the weavers shifting to if the demand wanes? Not to mention, a textile directory is vanishing before our eyes—a classic example of creative destruction.”

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Designer Payal Khandwala may not see it as a dead end though. “With the printed dupatta in synthetic fabrics replacing its hand-woven counterpart, the weaving community was already struggling. With more attention to hand-woven textiles and slow fashion in general—whether it is for scarves, garments or even home furnishings—we can certainly compensate for this shift and the subsequent loss of revenue from the traditional dupatta.”

And yet, Deepshikha Khanna, head of apparel at Good Earth Sustain shares that the traditional dupatta forms their highest selling category. She says, “Its use has definitely not dwindled. For as long as we continue to wear our traditional clothes the existence of the dupatta will remain relevant.” Tina Tahliani-Parikh, executive director of multi-brand boutique Ensemble, finds the dupatta remains an intrinsic part of the Indian outfit. She says, “It is a very feminine element, so I don’t see it getting replaced. Younger girls may wear a lehenga choli without the dupatta, but with the older, more mature customers, there is no question of the dupatta not being there. A Mughal-style Anarkali would be incomplete without the dupatta.

The Transformation

Khandwala, whose garments keep the dupatta optional, stresses on expressing individuality versus conforming. “The difference is we have the choice now to wear the dupatta simply for the romance of it or for its drama, rather than as a symbol of modesty.” She finds that the change may have taken place for multiple reasons—including the need to push boundaries creatively, to make the fashion landscape less homogenous, attention to comfort and practicality and a need to redefine what is handed down in the name of tradition.

The dupatta has most definitely evolved—from two-and-a-half to two-metre variants that flow on both shoulders; to the shorter stole which falls on one shoulder only, and to an even shorter square scarf that may be worn on the neck, on the head as a bandana, or tied to a handbag as a visual accessory. Lifestyle brand Nicobar, that looks to establish a modern Indian voice, has a range of diaphanous Chanderi overlays and jackets that alternatively dress up or bring traditional texture to a Western outfit. It may not be wrong to assume that in this case, the dupatta has been entirely eliminated and replaced by an overlay.

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Khanna points out that as style evolves so does the use of clothing. “A kurta which was once conservative is now worn over a swimsuit to a beach. Similarly, a dupatta, which is very versatile, is now a scarf, a sarong or a halter top. Globally, traditional weaves like Ikat or Mughal motifs are seen on dupattas that have been adopted as scarves and have become a part of Western ensembles. It is an iteration of the dupatta seen in a different context. While its early reasons for existence needed an update as the women wearing it have evolved, one finds that Indian women continue to stay attached to their traditions but adapt them to suit a more global lifestyle.”

Clothing, in the manner of art and music, reflects socio-cultural changes—which is marked in how we choose to present ourselves with the new-found freedom to express. In that sense, the dupatta’s transformation is a sign of the times, where women are no longer required to be ‘modest’. And as for its evolution, as Khandwala puts it, “To simply repackage old ideas makes fashion stagnant and predictable. It is just as important to suggest alternatives that define the future.” And the dupatta today remains, free-flowing, open to interpretation and boundless in its versatility as it floats away from patriarchal tradition.

Crafting Wearables: Fashion’s New Frontier

24 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Published: Biology, Technology, Fashion in The Voice of Fashion, October 24, 2018

It’s a time of grand intersections, and we could soon be wearing garments that were once alive in some form or could charge your mobile on the go

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Fashion’s new frontier is taking nature’s methodology and applying it to create new materials in an interdisciplinary approach, moving organically towards possibilities and dynamic solutions to problems that are rife in the fashion industry today, including waste, over-production and non-biodegradable materials.

The first manifestation of the collaboration between British designer Stella McCartney and California-based biotech company, BOLT Threads, using manmade vegan silk, Microsilk, was on display at The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, ‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’ earlier this year. A similar garment is currently on view in, ‘Fashioned From Nature’, at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum until January 27, 2019.

“We live in a very special time in history, a rare time, a time when the confluence of four fields is giving designers access to tools we’ve never had access to before. These fields are computational design, allowing us to design complex forms with simple code; additive manufacturing, letting us produce parts by adding material rather than carving it out; materials engineering, which lets us design the behaviour of materials in high resolution; and synthetic biology, enabling us to design new biological functionality by editing DNA,” said American–Israeli architect, designer, and professor at the MIT Media Lab, Neri Oxman, at a TED 2015 event.

Traditionally, scientists would initiate innovations in materials, fabrics, or technology, after which, designers would step in. “This is not a very productive and effective way of collaboration—since the designer can help direct scientific innovation towards a desirable product,” says Jose Teunissen, the curator for the recently-concluded State of Fashion 2018 exhibit in Arnhem, Netherlands. Teunissen, who is also a Professor of Fashion Theory at the University of the Arts London and Dean of London College of Fashion, explains, “As scientists and designers start to work on the challenges with the aim to make the planet and our living better, they both work from their own expertise, while also learning to collaborate at an early stage, learning each other’s’ language and philosophy to understand that both disciplines have specific knowledge that can contribute to a solution.”

One of the interdisciplinary and collaborative projects showcased at the State of Fashion 2018, ‘The Future of Living Materials’, started from the observation that designers have begun working with new kinds of biomaterials, such as mycelium, fruit leather, or with bacteria that produce colour. “We believe that fashion is in dire need of more value-based critical thinking as well as critical (design) practices to explore, disrupt, redefine and transform the system. In addition, we believe that research through artistic and creative practices leads to new insights regarding urgent societal challenges,” says Dr Danielle Bruggeman, Professor of Fashion, at the ArtEZ University of the Arts, Arnhem.

Picking some innovative collaborations in the fashion industry:

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Pauline van Dongen’s wearable solar garments

Wearable Solar Garments
Dutch designer Pauline van Dongen has designed a range of garments as a part of the on-going collaborative research project ‘Wearable Solar’, which aims to create garments that can harness the sun’s energy. It is designed with transformable silhouettes, where side panels that contain the arrays of solar cells can be folded towards the body. A smartphone can be connected using the cable in one of the side pockets. In bright sunlight, it will be fully charged in roughly two hours. In a practical application, Van Dongen and sustainable clothing brand Blue LOOP Originals have also designed a garment that could provide tour guides with solar energy and shelter them from the wind and water.

Lab-grown Leather
Modern Meadow, a New York startup, has been experimenting with cultured animal cells and tissues to create an alternative biomaterial to traditional leather. This lab-grown leather could offer a more sustainable alternative and could eliminate defects generally seen in leather while controlling properties such as durability, elasticity, strength and water resistance. Meanwhile, Dutch product designer, Tjeerd Veenhoven, has invented AlgaeFabric, an H&M Global Change Award winner 2015, through which vegan leather can be made from algae, which by their nature form a sustainable source.

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Mycelium Materials
Dutch company Fungi Fashion combines 3D technology with mycelium (mushroom roots), producing custom-made clothes out of this new natural fibre that is sustainably grown in a lab. Once worn out, the garments can be simply buried in the ground to decompose. MycoTEX, as the fabric is known, by NEFFA, is 100 per cent biodegradable and is an H&M Global Change Award winner. Earlier this year, BOLT Threads released a material called Mylo, grown in New York by the biomaterials company Ecovative, made from mycelium cells dyed with English Breakfast tea, which forms the base material for leather bags.

Fabric from Food Waste
Innovative fabrics have been developed putting to use waste from the food industry. For example, discarded Amazonian freshwater fish skin becomes leather by Brazilian luxury brand, Osklen. Italian silk manufacturer, Canepa, has created the SAVEtheWATER® Kitotex® project in partnership with CNR-ISMAC Biella, where the polymer from the exoskeleton of shrimp forms the fibre. The Italian company, Orange Fiber, winner of the H&M Global Change Award 2016, has created sustainable fabrics from citrus juice by-products that would otherwise be thrown away—Salvatore Ferragamo is the first fashion house to employ Orange Fiber fabrics. UK-based eco-fashion designers VIN + OMI have been focusing on eco-processes and textile development since 2004, including a plant-based textile ‘leather’ made from chestnuts.

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Digital Fabrication and 3D
Japanese designer Yuima Nakazato’s ‘Freedom’ collection created a system by using digital fabrication that allows various materials—like cotton, wool, and nylon—to be combined freely, without the use of needles and threads. Unlike the usual method of making sewn clothes, the 3D Unit Constructed Textile can be adjusted to the size and shape of a garment to create a precise fit to the wearer’s figure.

Meanwhile, a dress from avant-garde Dutch designer, Iris van Herpen’s Spring 2018 haute couture collection, ‘Ludi Naturae’, is made from innovative material ‘foliage’, the result of a collaboration with the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in which leaf-like patterns are 3D printed as thin as 0.8 mm. Then tulle is laid into the 3D printer to print directly onto the fabric, creating exceptional softness.

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The Future Footwear Foundation develops alternative ways of footwear that are sustainable for the environment and body. Shoes usually do not reflect the natural shape of your feet. 3D-printed and made-to-measure footwear—inspired by indigenous handcrafted footwear like the Kolhapuri chappal—are slated to be out in the market by the end of this year, commercialised by Vivobarefoot, London, U.K.

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Interactive Clothing
Canadian designer, Ying Gao, focuses on the relationship between the wearer and the garment, as well as the relationship with one’s environment, in ‘Possible Tomorrows’. A design was developed from a series of algorithms associated with the realm of pattern recognition. Her interactive dresses respond to the touch of others; the material is only activated in the presence of strangers whose fingerprints are not recognised by the material—latently addressing notions of privacy and individualism.

 

Fashion Retail: Does Sustainability Matter?

18 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Published: The Voice of Fashion, October 18, 2018

Is sustainable retail an oxymoron? We speak to five retailers to see how they weigh in.

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As the buzz around sustainable fashion grows, how many conversations involve that of the retailer? One of the key elements of the sustainable fashion conversation is to reduce the economy of excess and to encourage people to buy less. And therein lies the dichotomy—can a person who is necessarily driven by the bottom line, be motivated to make these choices?

Finding a Sustainable Retailer

And therefore, can there be a sustainable retailer or is it an oxymoron? Maithili Ahluwalia, founder of multi-brand fashion boutique in Mumbai, Bungalow Eight, points out that the day you are a retailer, your model is built around unsustainability because your basic premise is to sell as much as you can—whether it is season-less or handloom products. She says, “It is hard to say that you are sustainable unless you control the entire process from yarn to finished product. You could claim consciousness or partial sustainability but perhaps, ‘selling sustainable luxury’ is only valid when you have an in-built anti-consumerist ethic, control the entire supply chain and plough back resources into the ecosystem in a circular economy.”

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Bhagyashree Patwardhan, founder and creative director of slow-fashion boutique, Paper Boat Collective, Goa, which veers towards ‘natural’ over ‘sustainable’, believes that “sustainability’ and ‘organic’ are big words and as much as one tries, a hundred percent adherence to it as a retailer is difficult.”

Is there a point then to the dialogue on retail and sustainability? Simran Lal, co-founder of pan-India lifestyle brand Nicobar (and CEO of Good Earth), says, “We don’t claim to be sustainable because it is open to interpretation and there are so many parameters to it. We believe we are a conscious and mindful brand vis-a-vis a sustainable brand. We care about what, how and why we do things and are constantly reflecting on our actions.” And what about an anti-consumerist ethic? Lal says, “Although it does seem like a contradiction, at Nicobar, we have always wanted to encourage thoughtful consumption. Buy less, pay the right amount for the product so that the entire value chain is well taken care of—and thus the quality is superior, waste is less and that is, in my opinion, a conscious way of creating, retailing and consuming.”

Steps Taken

What is it that a conscious retailer can do? Pick the right kind of goods to stock, for one. Patwardhan states that Paper Boat Collective offers handmade products in natural materials, working with small designers, suppliers and manufacturers, who in turn work with smaller craftspeople or use resources that are sustainable. “This allows us a way to build a backend integrated towards sustainable and fair-trade practices.”

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Tina Tahiliani-Parikh, executive director, multi-brand boutique, Ensemble (Mumbai and Delhi) drives initiatives that are embedded in craft—“It is very important that we keep our craft and handloom movements alive in this country. We should not go the way of Japan, where the Kimono is relegated to a ceremonial garment. Ensemble is an active supporter of the handloom sari; and we, right from the start, support a lot of young designers whose raison d’etre is sustainable fashion.”

Toile, Paper Boat Collective and Nicobar have taken it a step further into elements like decor, packaging and materials, respectively. Farheen B Rahman, co-founder of eco-fashion store, Toile (Mumbai), says they use coir for their walls and have upcycled an old Singer machine as their billing counter; while Patwardhan uses recyclable packaging materials, less paper, natural cleaning products, hardly any plastic and also aims to be zero-waste.

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At Nicobar, Lal lists initiatives like offering timeless garments in organic cotton, going plastic-bottle free, reusing packing cartons multiple times and paperless invoicing. She says, “Through our collaborative cafe, NicoCaara, we have created a menu with fresh, chemical-free produce grown at the farm of our partners, Caara, or by supporting local artisanal suppliers who in turn, believe in practising and supporting sustainable businesses.”

The Challenges

Perhaps the strongest hit a committed retailer may take is on the bottom line. Rahman admits that the turnover is very different compared to fast fashion. She says, “It is a slow process. We have refused designers who differed in ideology even though their designs were good and saleable, and those who projected themselves as sustainable but were not.”

Lal is struggling with finding sustainable packaging materials that are “affordable and consistent for delicate and fragile products to be shipped.” She says, “We are currently experimenting with different types, and are willing to take a hit on our margins to make packaging more sustainable.”

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Parikh states that there has been only a marginal increase in consumer awareness towards sustainable fashion. She says, “It is a conversation. A first-time shopper may not buy into the sustainable philosophy immediately. But once they acquire a couple of garments and experience the longevity of the garment, or they are in the ecosystem, they begin to change their minds. It is a very gradual process.”

Creativity and Effort

A little creative effort goes a long way. Celebrating season-less attire, limited production with a curated and thoughtful supply chain, use of non-toxic and biodegradable materials, elimination of waste and being conscious of the carbon footprint. Maybe an upcycling or recycling station at the retail front.

Yvon Chouinard, founder of the American apparel and outdoor gear label Patagonia, reminds his customers in New-York-based publication, The Usual: “Think twice before you buy a product from us. Do you really need it or are you just bored and want to buy something?”

As is the case with a sustainable supply chain, this requires a willingness on the part of the retailer to buy into the philosophy, the knowledge that this is critical to our future and the acceptance that there will be, at least initially, a monetary fallback. And if the consumer isn’t demanding it, perhaps the onus lies on the retailer to open up a fresh dialogue to create a conscious consumer and a responsive demand.

The Designer-Activist of the Sunderbans

11 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Published: The Voice of Fashion, October 11, 2018

The Sunderbans in West Bengal is a UNESCO World heritage site, with many endangered species and the world’s largest coastal mangrove forest. Located in the southern part of the mangrove region, amid the wild tales of flora and fauna, is a contained community that uses the natural resources to be self-sufficient. Four local women, Bulu Raha, Anima Mondal, Sushuma Mistry and Shephali Roy—who technically live outside Kolkata and also make Canning town their base—were mentored by a social worker, Prakriti Roy, who was working with spinners and weavers at that time. In 1975, at the age of 18, Shephali went to Roy for a job. Instead, he guided her in creating a self-sufficient fair-trade women’s organisation, the Sunderban Khadi Village Industrial Society (SKVIS), of which she is now vice president. In 1981, SKVIS began exports post their first sample order from Holland. While the women—who are well-schooled and have good communication skills—have the combined skill sets of weaving, spinning, dyeing, design and tailoring, their local orders largely remain printing jobs.

Natural Dye Master SuramaNatural-dye master, Surama, in the Sunderbans

Finding a Local Voice

Ondi McMaster-Chullil, a believer in indigenous design and sustainability, has explored the talent of the women of SKVIS in her local handcrafted eco-ethical label, Atelier OM. She sources products like muslin khadi and stoles from them, has worked on batik designs and researched natural dyeing of fabric with them. An American raised in California, she spent two years in India in the mid 1990s studying regional crafts and returned in 2010 on an Art Karavan, as a part of a performance installation art movement, starting in Shantiniketan and travelling across nine cities in nine weeks. After working for Issey Miyake and as a costume designer in film and television in New York, her return to India was an entrepreneurial turning point. In 2011, she began her own sustainable label; she keeps a seasonal shop called OMkhadi in North Goa, while retailing out of stores in India and worldwide, including Paperboat Collective and Sacha’s Shop in Goa, Artisans in Mumbai and Good Earth (Delhi, Mumbai).

McMaster-Chullil discovered the local Sunderbans’ community out of a desire to see the areas from where the raw materials are produced. She believes, “If you are a designer in India, you should live beside them and see what it means to make those products. From bumpy roads and tiger-eating stories to destitution…but what you do have is something that’s truly authentic—people are willing to survive and make really beautiful products out there.”

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Ondi at OMKHADI shop event

Building a Support Network

Having travelled to the location several times over the last few years, McMaster-Chullil now considers the four women of the Sunderbans to be her close friends. With no infrastructure or hotels in the remote area, she lives in their homes. “(Prakriti) Roy saw in them the attraction towards working for something more meaningful in their life than just being mothers. These four women have formed an amazing network and support system for many women there.” Today, SKVIS trains young girls; works towards social implementation and is an enabler with a micro-finance setup for 500 local women.

The concept of a community and its well-being is strong—the driving force is not the ego, profits or monopolisation. It is to work with and develop the natural resources towards a greater good. With fashion being the second largest pollutant after oil, and an industry that has now become infamous for low-wage mass production of goods, designers that take up the baton as activists attempt to bring order and stability in a skewed universe. McMaster-Chullil believes that a “designer-activist” has to have integrity, moral fibre, and a deep understanding of the situation. “I will make the decisions that are beneficial for the people that I am working with. After which, I make the decisions for the planet that I am living on. What I am interested in is the people—investing in relationships by working together and watching each other grow.”

Batik UnitBatik unit in the Sunderbans

At the risk of romanticising, McMaster-Chullil describes the community of SKVIS: “Women working in the way of village life: children sitting next to their mothers as they have a meeting, women spinning with children lying on their laps…no deadline or rush; it is one of the beautiful stories in India of female entrepreneurship.” And yet, it is a modern Indian story, because these women have the freedom to be entrepreneurial and are respected for what they do. “They have much less than others, and yet are happy, content and grateful. They are not excessive, they live within their means. It comes down to simplicity. The vision of the future isn’t an industrialised one.”

A Fair Swap

28 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Published: The Voice of Fashion, September 28, 2018

Mumbai will witness its first-ever clothes swap at Fairtrunk Offline’s third and to-date biggest sustainable event

On October 6, Mumbai is going to see what is potentially the city’s first official clothes swap. While traditionally hand-me-downs are a part of the fabric of Indian society, swapping clothes has not yet made it to accepted fashionista parlance. Bursting wardrobes and the ongoing dialogue on sustainable fashion encourage the thought that a pre-loved garment in good condition that one may have outgrown—in terms of size, fit, style or interest—may work wonderfully for someone else.

Dhawal Mane, Global Fashion Exchange (GFX) Ambassador for India, who has organised three such swaps (called SwapStitched) in Bengaluru, the most recent being September 22, is ready to take the concept to other cities. In Fairtrunk Offline—an event-based offshoot of the slow-fashion digital marketplace, Fairtrunk—Mane has found a worthy platform to partner with. He says: “I would like to see more people embracing swapping and bartering as a form of consumption. It is a mindset shift: from ownership to access, albeit mindfully.” For the Mumbai swap, Seams For Dreams (SFD), a charity organisation by actress Evelyn Sharma, will be sharing some pre-loved, gently used clothing items by designers, and all the leftover clothing items will be donated to the ones in need by SFD.

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Vast Creative Possibilities

India witnessed—what Mane states is—probably the country’s biggest swap when he got inspired by the GFX’s global swap event during the worldwide movement, Fashion Revolution Week 2018. Mane went on to become the local ambassador for swaps and organised the first swap event in Bengaluru, where 150 items of clothing were traded among 60 attendees in four hours. So far, 190 items have been swapped, among 85 people from Bengaluru, while diverting approximately 150 kg of clothing from a landfill or an incinerator. These swaps are also a part of the 1 million pound partnership with GFX, which is the quantity of clothing that GFX aims to save from ending up in a landfill in 2018.

SwapStitched events are scheduled to take place in Bengaluru once every two months on weekends, in different locations. Says Mane: “While the number of attendees is increasing with every swap, we also have repeat swappers because it is a fun process exploring different designs from in-season to vintage, providing infinite creative possibilities of styling an outfit—where no two products will be the same—while being light on the pocket.”

Building a Slow Fashion Community

SwapStitched is only one of the events that Fairtrunk Offline is organising in its day-long event at Pioneer Hall in Bandra. In the past, Fairtunk Offline has held two events, the most recent being a part of Fashion Revolution week in April, and included a documentary screening, blogger meet-up, panel discussions, and an upcycling workshop. Its third edition will be the largest Fairtrunk Offline event to date, which will include a curated slow-fashion pop-up with 25 young brands across fashion and lifestyle, workshops with designers like Anuj Sharma from Button Masala and talks on sustainable fashion. The decor is planned with upcycled fabric. Darshana Gajare, founder of Fairtrunk and Fairtrunk Offline, expects a turnout of two to three thousand people.

5bae00d9185f4Msafiri, One of the brands showing at the pop-up.

Fairtrunk Offline was launched to increase awareness about sustainable fashion, creating experiences and building a mindful community, as evidenced in their #SlowTheFuckDown campaign. Gajare started both projects last year, after watching ‘The True Cost’, a documentary on the global effects of fast fashion. While spreading awareness about sustainability, Gajare discovered that consumers were asking for alternate options. This led to her launching an online marketplace, which now gives space to over 30 slow-fashion brands.

The lack of transparency, regulation and accountability in India forced Gajare to do her own groundwork in the selection of the brands. Being bootstrapped means that she can’t physically go to review each supply chain, but she “takes the time to meet and understand the brand ethos and to gauge if they are invested in the cause.” While admitting that it is not a foolproof method, her work as a part of the Fashion Revolution India team helps give her the muscle to evaluate brands and spread the word.

Event details: October 6, 10am-10pm, Pioneer Hall, Bandra, Mumbai. Insider link here, Facebook link here.

Swap Rules

You can bring up to 10 pieces of good quality, unwanted clothing. (Socks, underwear, lingerie, nightwear, pyjamas are not allowed.) Every item will be checked for quality, only approved pieces will make it to the swap floor. You get a coupon for an accepted piece of clothing that you have brought which can be used to pick up another piece of clothing that you want or retained for another swap event. Read more here.

Where Fashion Gets Square: Instagram’s Big Impact On Fashion

22 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: Mint Lounge

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Published: Mint Lounge, September 22 edition

When jewellery designer Kaabia Grewal hosted a Grecian bachelorette trip in Mykonos in July, she posted pictures of guests wearing custom-made Shivan & Narresh ensembles on Instagram (the designers themselves were on the guest list). Perhaps actor Sonam Kapoor’s May wedding—with #sonamkishaadi grabbing 68,800 posts—filled with decadent couture designs had set the tone.

Screen Shot 2018-09-22 at 2.11.08 PMAn Instagram campaign by Shivan & Narresh for their ‘Eden Noir’ collection

Instagram, launched in 2010 and acquired by Facebook Inc. for $1 billion (around ₹7,250 crore today) in 2012, is one of the world’s most popular social media apps. During a panel discussion titled Fashion On Instagram held in Delhi in July, Sandeep Bhushan, director, Facebook (India and South Asia), said, “Fashion is the third-most followed category by young people globally on Instagram, behind music and entertainment.” With a worldwide community of over one billion users, and 25 million businesses, the photo- and video-sharing app has changed the way we live, interact and shop. What is its digital charisma and can brands get famous by just getting on the bandwagon?

A level playing field
An audience ready to scroll and shop has created unprecedented opportunities for businesses. While the internet strips shopping of the touch-and-feel experience, Instagram’s ability to create evocative stories and user-generated-and-curated reportage of runway shows, collection and campaign previews and behind-the-scenes stories, infuses the fashion industry with a new dynamism.

Today, most Indian fashion brands use the platform proactively, while Kolkata-based couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee has been an Instagram trailblazer since 2015. His eponymous brand has seven Instagram accounts, including a core account (started in 2015 with 2.6 million followers), city-specific accounts and one dedicated to “Brides of Sabyasachi”. The designer’s Firdaus line debuted on Instagram in 2016 and his jewellery line followed suit in 2017. “A couture show is not meant to be a democratic release. But I wanted to flip the concept—do it in a way that it goes to every single household,” says the designer. “Gone are the days when you could build luxury with the concept of distance. Today, it has to be more inclusive.”

Screen Shot 2018-09-22 at 2.10.21 PMA screengrab from Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s official Instagram account

Raul Rai, co-founder of lifestyle brand Nicobar, believes their audience has been built largely on Instagram—50% of their customers discovered the brand via social media. Its reach also means that geography doesn’t restrict shopping. Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja have tapped markets like South Africa, Singapore, Jakarta and West Asia, courtesy their eponymous brand’s Instagram account.

Indie brands too capitalize on the platform. Carol’s Shop & Tea Room, selling vintage clothing and collectibles from Nagaland, has worked purely off Instagram from the start, taking orders directly through the portal. “The interaction with the customer is more on a personal level,” says model Carol Humtsoe, who founded the e-shop in 2016 (she is now putting together a small brick-and-mortar shop in Dimapur).

Screen Shot 2018-09-22 at 2.11.24 PMAn Instagram post from Carol’s Shop & Tea Room

From grid to gallery
The 3×1 grid on Instagram (the display format on user profiles) has become a dazzling visual playground for brands. When formulating campaigns, a sizeable amount of planning is dedicated to Instagram and brands are upping their content strategy to establish a distinct voice that, they assume, will eventually lead to sales. Arjun Sawhney, managing director of communications agency TCCGGD, believes Instagram creates communities and enables a strong point of view. “Social media helps create brand awareness, in the right tone, and garner an audience, but it is not necessarily a driver of sales,” he says. “A focused, relevant audience with the economic potential to engage is critical to a brand on social media. It is not just your content game; it is the stories you are pushing.”

During the New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2016, the Tommy Hilfiger show witnessed the “InstaPit”, an influencer-only section with claims to maximum visibility—#TommyFall16 and #TommyHilfiger reached 137,170,550 people on Instagram (according to marketing company Pixlee).

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More recently, American fast-fashion brand, Fashion Nova, has been in the news with 13.2 million Instagram followers. The brand’s customers have generated volumes of content, including selfies with #NovaBabes, driving sales via micro-influencers and celebrity endorsements.

While worldwide influencers make or break businesses, in India, the trend remains nascent. Malika Verma Kashyap, founder of digital agency and online publication Border&Fall, says, “It is filled with many smaller players who are engaging brands, but the level of ‘influence’ is negligible whether it be a stylist, designer, blogger or other. Bollywood remains the strongest influencer, and Sonam Kapoor reigns supreme with fashion brands.”

The evolution is rapidly underway, even if it hasn’t matured. “There is a shift in focus from bloggers with maximum follower count to creators of organic and original content with a targeted and niche followership, which, in turn, has given rise to a newer generation of thought leaders,” say designers Bhatiya and Kukreja.

For many brands, the platform is weighed down by the price of influencer marketing and Instagram’s reshuffled programming. What may have started as a democratic approach is now curated by algorithms that control the reach of posts. Meanwhile, consumers are also likely to get pickier about purchase triggers, gravitating towards authenticity and quality (over quantity) of posts. Rai keeps editorial and marketing teams separate to ensure an independent voice for Nicobar; while Mukherjee says: “I like to keep the voice intimate. Instagram allows you to connect directly with your consumer without a filter. The good, the bad and the ugly—it is all out there in honest, transparent communications.”

A digital economy of excess
A Hootsuite Instagram stats-list suggests that 60% people discover products through Instagram, and 70% are likely to make a purchase on their mobiles. Earlier this year, Instagram expanded its shoppable posts’ feature to eight countries and enabled electronic payments for some companies. Now, Instagram is reportedly developing a stand-alone shopping application that may be called “IG Shopping”.

But the sense of immediacy combined with the need to own can drive impulsive purchases. Among the selfie-clicking generation, can an Instagrammer be “seen” in the same garment again?

Buyers swipe their cards on both sides of the fence: those who swear by online shopping and others who continue to prefer the traditional touch-and-feel purchases. New York-based brand strategy professional Tarana Mehta, who goes online for most of her purchases, sees Instagram as a “discovery platform”, finding new brands via influencers or ads. She has, like many others, bought into “the convenience of shifting the dressing room to the bedroom”. Kashyap, on the other hand, chooses not to shop on Instagram to avoid the “re-targeting algorithm” (an online code tracking customers to display ads relevant to their search habits).

Yet the platform’s ability to build a strong voice expands to those balancing the scales as well. Organizations like Fashion Revolution and Global Fashion Exchange are using the platform to start a global dialogue on fashion and enable consumer awareness. As consumers drive trends, a platform like Instagram, when not diluted with aggressive advertising and clickbait, can facilitate meaningful dialogues on fashion.

The Story Of Scrap

19 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Published: The Voice of Fashion, September 19, 2018

Few zero-waste fashion labels are giving discarded fabric a new lease of life

Screen Shot 2018-09-22 at 1.59.09 PMBanner photo, from left to right: Doodlage, Tilla, Ka-sha by Karishma Shahani Khan

While consumer waste and the need to upcycle and recycle are ongoing and pertinent dialogues, how do designers in the fashion industry set a standard by being thrifty with the waste from their own manufacturing process? Scrap may be defined as the textile remnants left behind during the design and manufacturing of garments. In the garment districts of Dhaka, the jhut are left in go-downs (where fires are a regular occurrence), sold at the curb, dumped reaching landfills, or burned, causing immense pollution. Kriti Tula, of the upcycling label, Doodlage points out: “Approximately 120 billion square metres of fabric end up as waste in India, China, Bangladesh alone, and this does not include garment rejections during quality checks. Considering cotton takes one to five months to decompose while polyester sits around for 200 years, fabric scraps need to be managed better.” On an average, the Delhi-based Doodlage upcycles up to 600 kilograms of waste fabric every month—working with post-cutting waste, fabrics discarded for small defects and rejected garments.

The Art of Upcycling
All garments are cut from fabrics which come in rectangular panels, leading to up to 16 percent of the fabric being thrown away in cutting and stitching processes. This is the raw material for designers keen on saving resources that would have otherwise gone into the production of virgin fabrics. Karishma Shahani Khan, the founder of Pune-based label Ka-Sha believes in negligible waste in an endeavour termed ‘Heart to Haat’. She uses fabric waste extensively in embroidery, footwear, patchwork, stuffed toys, macramé and bags; reaching out to friends and other designers in the industry for their scrap as well. When clients come to Shahani Khan for a bespoke piece, she first checks if there is anything in their wardrobe which could be reconstructed. Says the designer, “Upcycling gives something that could have lost its actual value a new meaning. It is a creative process to ensure longevity, which works best if the garments are of high quality and are made to last.”

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Designs for Longevity
Aratrik Dev Varman from the Ahmedabad-based slow-fashion label, Tilla, finds the waste from the cutting to be valuable because so much time and effort is invested into the sustainable textiles he uses for his garments. “Odd bits and pieces—like the negative spaces under the armholes or neck—tend to normally be discarded, but since we produce the fabric ourselves, we consider it precious, and we save it all.” Varman gives the scrap a new lease of life: all the fallout is immediately categorised according to colour or fabric into a ‘library of scrap’, while the design process involves parallel thinking about artfully using the textile along with the leftover bits. The designer doesn’t believe that there is any scrap that cannot be used, “Waste is the failure of the imagination,” he points out, using the mantra of Douglas McMaster, founder of a first-ever zero-waste restaurant called Silo, in Birmingham.

For the Mumbai-based duo, Rekha Bhati and Nikki Kali, from the sustainable label, Kishmish, leftover textiles—which are grouped into bundles or ‘potla-potlis’—are designed into thoughtful products, like clothing, scarves and bags, leading to a ‘Potla Potli’ collection.

Screen Shot 2018-09-22 at 1.58.27 PM

Historically, handcrafted garments were designed with thrift in mind: saris, dupattas come off the loom in that shape, styles like ponchos, anarkalis or kalidar clothes use artful cutting without waste, and in cultures like Japan, the Kimono as a garment uses narrow strips to make a whole. Austrian Lenzing Group’s innovative Refibra technology (launched last year) upcycles cotton scraps from garment production along with wood pulp into Tencel™ Lyocell fibres from which new clothes may be made—brands like Zara and Cone Denim (USA) have begun using it.

Scraps have their own non-linear life journey, and it may not be wrong to say that the garment is richer for it. Japanese artist, Chiharu Shiota, who has created installations out of well-worn dresses (Memory of Skin, Yokohama Triennale, 2001), has said in Chiharu Shiota – Memory of Books, in conversation with James Putnam: “I am not interested in using a new dress because there are no memories or stories inside it.”

London-based Hendrickje Schimmel working under the name, Tenant of Culture, archives found or damaged pieces of anonymous clothing—and through her work, attempts to extend the longevity of the products as opposed to discarding them. She is quoted in 1 Granary, a publication by the students of Central Saint Martins saying: “[…] We live in such a remix culture. I don’t really believe in authorship and so naturally I feel that an artwork or garment should have more than one lifecycle.”

Finding the Right Balance
Evidently, post and pre-consumer scraps are one of many practices of the fashion industry which are set to have a long-term impact on our environment and the world we live in. While they make a garment textured, can scrap solve the problem of the cutting waste from the fashion industry? The duo from Kishmish, like all the others attempting to make a difference with thoughtful design, agree: “If every fashion label upcycles, it will eventually create a balance between consumption and the earth’s regenerative capacities.” Says Tula, “The situation is slowly heading towards a point of no return and the only way to effect a change is to reform the mindset of those who create as well as those who buy.”