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sitanshi talati-parikh

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Tag Archives: Kishmish

The Story Of Scrap

19 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Chiharu Shiota, Doodlage, Fashion, Ka-Sha, Kishmish, Scrap, Sustainability, Sustainable Fashion, Tenant of Culture, The Voice of Fashion, Tilla

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.

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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.”

The Natural Shade Card of Indian Fashion

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Fashion & Style, Publication: The Voice of Fashion, Sustainability

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Anavila, Divya Sheth, Fashion, Kishmish, Maku, Natural Dyes, OmArts, RiverBlue, Ruby Ghaznavi, Soham Dave, Sustainability, Sustainable Fashion, The Voice of Fashion, Tilla

Published: The Voice of Fashion, July 23, 2018

Screen Shot 2018-07-24 at 1.10.36 PM

“If you travel where most of the world manufactures denim, you end up with having rivers that are turning blue,” says the founder of the premium Canadian brand Dutil Denim, Erik Dickstein, in the environmental documentary RiverBlue (2016). This is not the natural blue of beautiful Instagram travel photos but rather the harsh ‘filter’ of insoluble Azo dyes and hazardous chemicals like mercury, cadmium and lead from the fabric dyes used in the fashion industry. These chemicals are killing marine life and creating chronic illnesses like cancer and sensory loss in people.

While today most of the mass-manufactured clothes are made with toxic chemical dyes, until the late 19th century all dyes were made naturally through plants, insects or shellfish—the art of natural dyeing thrived in the Indian subcontinent.

Indigo, sourced from the indigofera flowering plant, creates blues and greens and is considered ‘magical’ because it lends itself to a range of hues and all kinds of fibres. Santanu Das, for Kolkata-based sustainable label Maku, uses only natural indigo: “It is a difficult colour to work with, but it is also neutral and liked by all. It cannot be controlled—it is impossible to get an identical shade. That by itself is human and philosophical. It forces you to understand the limitations of a medium and craft and to take a step forward.”

While India has perfected colours like red and black—made from madder root and iron filings respectively—and in combination with other substances created hundreds of natural tints, Das believes that the natural shade card of India comprises “the seven different colours of white”. He adds, “We have a huge culture of wearing undyed things: dye is a luxury, as is pattern and printing.”

A number of Indian designers today have embraced kora (undyed) fabric and natural dyes as a part of their sustainable fashion initiatives as a manifesto, like Goa-based OmArts; as a part of capsule collections like Ahmedabad-based Tilla; or comprising a large portion of the collections, like Mumbai-based Anavila Misra’s linens (for label Anavila) which showcase undyed fabric or natural indigo, while other pieces use Azo-free chemical dyes.

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Today, in India, centres and artisans in Kutch, Bengal, Goa, Pondicherry and Hyderabad among others are working with natural dyes. In the sustainable fashion collections showcased at Lakmé Fashion Week Summer/Resort ’18 under the Usha Silai label, Amit Vijaya and Richard Pandav teamed up with women who are known for their work in natural dyes from a region near Jaipur.

Rekha Bhati and Nikki Kali of Kishmish, who work with the NGO Kala Swaraj, believe, “Everything has energy. If the process of making a garment is thoughtful, with kindness to the planet, you can feel it when you wear it.” Besides being good for the environment, naturally-dyed fabrics are a healthier option. Kolkata-based designer Divya Sheth points out, “Dyes penetrate our bodies; natural dyes like those made from turmeric and madder are not only therapeutic but also nourish and replenish the skin.”

But a naturally-dyed garment is not without challenges. Das, who dyes yarn in his workshop before sending it out for weaving, says, “There are no shortcuts for natural dyes—people don’t like to use them because it is a nightmare to work with them. The colour bleeds and fades. They cannot retain the colour ever after.” Sheth, who uses natural dyeing for 85 percent of her textiles, agrees that the process is tricky. “There’s a scarcity of artists, it is a tedious and laborious (manual) process. The colours change batch wise — the inconsistency means that no two garments would ever be the same. As much as we love this, some unaware clients take this as a defect.”

Soham Dave for his eponymous Ahmedabad-based sustainable label that works with Kutch-based artisans for dyeing avoids chemical dyes as much as possible. He stresses upon thinking about the entire process of production over dyes in isolation. He admits that the natural dyeing process is more expensive, as it involves a lot of rejection and handling, with dependency on the unpredictability of nature—wind or pollutants in water may impact the production. He says, “I have not come across many successful ways to mass produce it.”

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Scale perhaps is the biggest consideration of naturally-dyed garments, along with the considerable need for freshwater. Ruby Ghuznavi, activist and advocate for craft and natural dyes in Bangladesh, points out in a conversation with colour specialist Fiona Coleman in an interview on The Kindcraft, an independent online magazine, “There is a limit to the capacity you can produce. If you increase the capacity, there’s a danger you’ll lose the quality. And because we’re starting to make our colour solution from scratch every morning, there are a lot of points at which the process can go wrong. The minute you start making 1,000 pieces instead of 100, maybe one or two will not be colourfast.”

Designers like Aratrik Dev Varman of Tilla grapple with how a naturally-dyed garment is perceived in the market. Says Dev Varman, “You have to tell people to expect natural blemishes and fading of colours. It would be misleading to compare it to something that is chemically dyed in a factory. The challenge is educating and convincing people that despite all this, it is still a better product.” A consumer who has been conditioned to appreciate industrial homogenised products and accept it as the benchmark of perfection and quality is unlikely to embrace the uniqueness of a handmade, naturally-dyed garment which will age gracefully.

And yet, Coleman on The Kindcraft, perhaps referring to a more evolved British consumer with regard to sustainability, believes that education has changed customers and, if it is marketed as a natural product or a natural dye, the consumer would be happy to have that inconsistency. That may be a sign of things to come in India. In the standardised Pantone world of today, the variations that are seen in a naturally-dyed fabric are a call to celebrate the beauty of imperfections, just as nature would have it.

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Brief Timeline Of Natural Dyes In The Indian Subcontinent

2600 BCE Natural dyeing techniques developed during the Indus Valley civilisation and spread worldwide through trade routes.

1498
 Vasco da Gama discovered the maritime route to India. Indigo was the first valuable ‘spice’ to be exported by Portuguese traders.

Mughal Era (16th-18th centuries)
 Natural dyeing techniques developed finesse under the patronage of the Mughal emperors, who particularly loved indigo which gave the popular blues and greens.

The 19th century Bengal became the world’s main source of indigo.

1856
 The discovery of aniline dyes by British scientist William Henry Perkin, and their spread to colonial countries. It led to post-independence India no longer retaining its tradition of natural dyes except in a few rural communities.

1859
 Unjust production methods led to the Blue Mutiny during the British Raj.

1897
 German company BASF launched the synthetic ‘Indigo Pure BASF’ in the market.

The 70s
 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay initiated the movement for the revival and promotion of natural dyes in India (and Bangladesh).

1990 Activist and advocate for craft and natural dyes, Ruby Ghuznavi, started fair-trade organisation Aranya in Bangladesh, which has 3000 artisans.

2009 
Dr Himadri Debnath, deputy director of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) in Kolkata, found a unique 15-volume set (with 3500 samples) of Specimens of Fabrics Dyed with Indian Dyes compiled by British Victorian dyer Thomas Wardle, which was believed to have been lost.

2013
 Colours of Nature, Auroville—which began manufacturing natural blue jeans with organic indigo dye and local cotton yarn in 1993 collaborated with Levi’s to launch the first truly organic 511 jeans.

— Compiled from Marg’s Colours of Nature: Dyes From The Indian Subcontinent (December 2013)

Examples of Sources of Natural Dyes

Blue and Green: Indigofera plant, neel and woad leaves, girardinia fibre.

Red: Cochineal, lac insect, root and bark of mulberry, madder root, henna leaf, red beet, sappan, red sandalwood, walnut shell, bark and leaf, Indian almond tree bark.

Yellow: Himalayan rhubarb root, marigold flower, pomegranate peel, mango, lodh, saffron, turmeric, ivy bark, cotton flower, teak leaf.

Purple: Muricidae sea snails, logwood.

Brown: Octopus, cuttlefish, cutch tree, amla, ginger root.

Black: Iron and jaggery, sal bark, marking nut.

QUICK CARE TIP

A naturally-dyed garment needs personal care. Hand-wash with cold water using a mild detergent, or better yet, reetha (Soapnut).

 

|  Filling the gaps between words.  |

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