CHENNAI: There are two things that the recently concluded Fashion Revolution week 2017 taught us — one is to ask the all-important question: who made my clothes? Second is to look forward to be flag bearers of sustainable fashion. With several youngsters enthusiastically becoming a part of the movement that focuses and attempts to curb ‘fast fashion’, CE met two ‘sustainable-fashion driven’, bloggers-cum-designers Sruti Ashok and Shivani Patel, who were part of ‘love story/haulternative’, a workshop curated by Fashion Revolution India and Rossbelle. Chatting with CE, the duo talk about everything that’s upcycled, eco-friendly and ‘all about loving nature’.
For Sruti, her ‘Live Raw’ movement/blog started two years back when she stumbled upon articles and facts about the fast fashion industry. Recalling her first brush with these stories, she narrates, “I read about industrial pollution, wages, working conditions and so on, and was quite shocked to say the least. That’s when I decided to stitch my own clothes.”
Since then, Sruti says she has become the ‘legitimate owner’ of her clothes — from fabric to the final knot stitch. From stitching kurtis using her grandmother and mother’s old saris to revamping an old skirt and wearing it to weddings, this young blogger has done it all — without any design/fashion background, whatsoever. “My mother is my inspiration. She chooses her clothes wisely and knows what exactly she wants. This way, there’s no wastage of clothes. I make sure I leave no leftover fabric — just like my mother,” she says and points to her polka-dotted summer dress. “I stitched this from a fabric I procured from a factory that was shutting down. It had been with me for years and I decided to put it to use.”
With a knack for renovation and reinvention, the graphic designer-cum-blogger is all set to launch her own label – Thole (skin). “My family was in the leather business and just like the cloth industry, there’s a lot that goes waste in leather too. So, I am planning to use all the waste to make accessories,” she adds.
As we talk of leather and sustainability, Shivani Patel, co-founder, Arture, says that it’s not just about wearing organic products, but also about ethical fashion. Making wallets and hand-bags out of cork fabric, instead of leather, she says, is an ‘eco-conscious’ way to create something fashionable.
Looking back at her journey, she reminisces, “After graduation from NIFT in 2013, I wanted to start a sustainable label. But most brands replace leather with synthetic and we didn’t want to do that. Thus, after research we found cork to be a fabric that could help in making premium accessories that would be at par with leather...but
is also more eco-friendly at the same time.” .
Though she is barely two years old in the industry, she says that the takers for sustainable fashion have increased. “Cork-made accessories will suit their needs of vegetarians and vegans who cannot use leather Many have even asked us to expand our range to include more products,” she says.