Sustainable fashion is being redefined by Indian homegrown brands
Growing up, sustainability for me was far from the concept of luxury that it has become today. It is a way of living that has been expressed in the simplest act of my mother who makes quarterly trips in the Khadi Gramodyog sockets and the purchase lessons of pastel colored fabrics, that she would adapt later to death shirts. Several years later, when I arrived in Delhi for the first time, I remember being accosted by peers who would marvel at certain pieces of my closet. The brand of Indian middle class in the middle class, I gleaned internally.
“In Indian households, the word has not been used, but it has always been there as a concept”, Chimes in Kavita Parmar, founder and creative director of the Iou and Xant project, an annual international festival celebrating the heritage, the textiles and crafts. For Parmar, which began its career supply for major American brands, sustainability was a concept rooted in its inheritance. It uses the example of a simple lungi (a kind of tissue wrapped around the waist whose two ends are knotted together), which, in most households a cloth.
At a time when brands around the world are faced with the challenge of an ever-increasing consumption force, a new harvest of Indian creatives find an urgent need to center zero-drop policies and ethical production practices at the heart of their labels . For Ashita Singhal, founder of Paiwand Studio, sustainable fashion was in the trivial daily life. “Whether it is my grandfather’s dhoti or my mother’s saris, everything has been transmitted or used further,” she shares. In fact, it is the practice of his mother of Paiwand Lagana (repair of clothing) that inspired the name of the brand, with concepts of repair, reuse and reinventure of clothes in his heart.
Unlike many of the industry, Singhal does not consider sustainability as an imposed nickname; Rather, as a sub-product of reflected design and responsible production. For her, it is authenticity – to understand local materials and to solve local problems. Visiting the Sound Nagar mill in Delhi, she discovered looms and dusty weavers abandoning their profession due to financial difficulties. Singhal has promised to provide a job and preserve the weaving profession, ensuring that hand traditions are not lost in time. “I was deeply moved by what I saw, and that solidified my determination to work and raise these communities,” she said.
This feeling is philosophy at the heart of the eponymous label of Sonam Khetan. Launched in 2022, the brand only uses natural dyes and avoids polyester and animal skins, reflecting Khetan’s vision of a brand that “cares” the environment, people who create clothes and customers who carry them. “It is no longer possible to do anything, whether fashion or otherwise, without engaging in the defense of the biosphere,” she says.
Khetan’s collections are not dictated by ephemeral trends but by a larger and timeless story. His creations mix the richness of Indian crafts with clean and minimalist silhouettes. Whether in collaboration with craftsmen based in Delhi or a Himalayan wool woven by hand, Khetan devotes himself to the integration of regional and global influences in his pieces. Referring to a piece featuring embroidery inspired by the NASA satellite card of the Winds of Mosson of India, she describes her work not only as “portable art” but a means of “narration”.
But like Khetan and Singhal, the challenges in Gogo for such local labels which favor sustainability in the development of their brand identity. For Kriti Tula, founder of doodlage, the higher cost of ecological materials and sustainable production often discourages consumers. According to Khetan, working with materials like Khadi Silk and Khadi Cotton is not only more expensive, but work with small lasting lots limits flexibility. Such challenges also have other overflow effects – affordability problems in a market sensitive to prices like India.
According to Karishma Shahani Khan, founder of the Ka-Sha brand, sailing on affordability while maintaining the integrity of the product is a constant “balancing act”. Nevertheless, Khan remains attached both in the environmental and social aspects of sustainability, ensuring that the craftsmen receive a coherent work season after season to cultivate their profession. To this end, it has now launched a parallel, Sister Brand Heart to Haat, which reuses each centimeter of tissue waste emerging from the production of Ka-Sha.
At Doodlage, Tula follows the brand’s progress without relying on expensive certifications. Instead, his team spends hours buying locally, maintaining transparency in the supply chain, retaining natural resources and ensuring fair wages for workers. “Our ultimate objective is to integrate more advanced tools and references as we grow,” she shares, imagining a future where the brand can continue to evolve its sustainability efforts without compromising its values.
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Denying the binaries of the position of the luxury brand and the industrial scaling, Parmar undresses on the possibility of a commercial model which means that sustainable fashion emerges from its unaffordable niche corner. She imagines a model of patented design of a house, accessible by an affordable cost, then replied by hand by local craftsmen on personalized clothes. “It would be like listening to a Beatles song. It is one of my dreams, but each technology that is required for it exists, ”she adds with a barely concealed smile.
