IMPRESSIONS from a Cross-section

Topic

Sustainability compulsions are slowly beginning to drive most industry trends. To what extent does your organisation comply with environment protection?

Sustainable fashion is also ‘slow fashion’

Handloom weaving is gaining currency as focus is increasingly shifting to 'zero-effect' on environment. Fibre2Fashion spoke to few handlloom-handmade organisations to find out how they produce without harming the environment.

Bosco Henriques
Co-Founder, Biodye India Pvt Ltd

My colleague-the late Ann Shankar-and I decided that if we wanted to make natural dyeing sustainable, we needed to go private rather than depend on grant funding and hence Biodye India Pvt Ltd was started.

Operating from Madkhol village in Sawantwadi Tehsil of Sindhudurg district in Maharashtra, we are a dye-house that dyes all yarn, fabrics and apparel made from natural fibres supplied by our principals (clients).

We have shown that natural dyes can compete with synthetic dyes in range and performance. By shifting to natural dyeing, the pollution wrought by the use of synthetics dyes can slowly be reduced. We also encourage those around us to cultivate trees and adopt organic farm practices.

Mala and Pradeep Sinha
Founders, Bodhi

Vadodara, Gujarat-based Bodhi's USP is in being a sustainable label in the truest sense of the word and that would encompass pretty much everything.

At Bodhi, we clean, recycle and reuse effluents, which we generate using a very simple and an elegant technology based on filtration and bio-remediation, making us a 'zero discharge' unit.

Bina and K Siva Kesava Rao
Founders, Creative Bee

Based out of Hyderabad in south India, Creative Bee is a hub of the highest quality of hand-crafted fashion and textiles. We have a policy of training weavers to use azo-free and low-impact organic acid dyes, and then modifying their looms to get flawless weaving.

At the Creative Bee farm, we produce almost all natural dye colour shades needed for global fashion. Our products are 100 per cent environment-friendly. We do not use any harmful ingredients in our natural dyes. We use zero electricity in all our processes, except garments.

B Prasanna
Founder, Charaka

Located in Bhimanakone village in the Western Ghats, Charaka is into the spectrum of plant-dyed fabrics, handloom weaving, fabric designing, block printing, hand embroidery and tailoring.

Charaka employs the traditional technique of vat-dyeing. Though Charaka's colour palette is limited, it is natural. The indigo colour is modified by adding herbs and plants for yellow tints, reddish browns hues, and pinkish red shades; besides the regular range of blues and blacks.

The natural dyes in fabrics are not only closer to nature, but also have a curative effect.

Sonnie Kath
Founder, Exotic Echo Society

Exotic Echo Society, which runs a training centre in Diezephe--a small village on the outskirts of Dimapur in Nagaland, is not only trying to revive loin-loom weaving, but is also working towards a sustainable economy and empowerment for rural communities.

Loin-loom weaving may be a dying art, but it also attracts customers since it is sustainable fashion. People acknowledge the impact that it has on communities. Moreover, there is an increasing awareness and consciousness about naturally-dyed and hand-made products.

For us, it is not about quantity production, but quality production that is sustainable and eco-friendly. Ours is sustainable fashion. It is also 'slow fashion'.

Nivedita Banerji
Founder, Kumbaya Producer Company Ltd

Located deep in the tribal drylands of Bagli tehsil in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, Kumbaya has worked to empower women from one of the most deprived areas of the country by creating livelihoods through the dynamic skill of garment fabrication.

Right from the start, before it became fashionable to 'upcycle' and to do 'jugaad', Kumbaya got into recycling scraps of fabric into striking patchwork designs.

Kumbaya works towards zero-waste. Every scrap of fabric finds its way into patchwork. Even pieces made during training are re-designed into useful products.

Published on: 27/11/2018

DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.

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