CHENNAI: When Anjula Giriram and Sangeetha Illango of Wildflower Media and Shibi Kumaramangalam met, they realised their mutual interest in organising a pop-up that was different and meaningful. This culminated in the first edition of The Mindful Market — a curated marketplace for conscious consumerism — after two months of tireless work.
The pop-up that took place on Saturday had 36 stalls — from clothes, jewellery, home decor, baked goods to footwear, skincare and bags. Whether it was the handmade leather shoes, organic skincare products, cold-pressed juices, fabric necklaces made of fabric scraps, pottery products, beaded jewellery, breezy cotton and linen outfits, comfy bed linen, handmade cheese, cloth pads, healthy products like quinoa and flaxseed or lip-smacking eats, the pop-up was a delight for people of all ages and with varied interests.
People flocked the show with their families and went from stall to stall appreciating the importance of slowing down and looking at sustainable alternatives rather than quick fixes.
“We looked at all the pop-ups that have been going on in the city but no one is promoting conscious consumption,” said Shibi. “All the vendors for this pop-up were carefully selected and invited. We wanted to promote brands that help the local community as well. None of the brands mass produce and almost all use eco-friendly packaging. Even at the pop-up, we did not provide water bottles to minimise waste and plastic usage.”
Keeping the pop-up at the Blue Turtle Hall in the House of Hiranandani apartment complex on OMR was a calculated decision, especially with the slew of pop-ups happening every other day in the city. “This is a newer market and we wanted to give brands access to a different set of customers,” said Sangeetha. “We are familiar with what a pop-up in this kind of resident community entails. We wanted to ensure footfalls for our vendors and as for the message of conscious consumption, while we can’t expect a huge change, knowing that this pop-up and the ideas of sustainability and conscious consumerism will reach this community of residents too is a small change.”
Shattering the common perception that slow fashion is not affordable was one of the objectives of the pop-up. “We wanted to dispel the myth that slow fashion is expensive,” the organisers said. “Slow fashion brands are affordable and affordability was a very important factor that we kept in mind while picking the vendors.
We kept a wide variety of stalls and have kept the pricing from `50 all the way up till `3 lakh for handcrafted gold jewellery. But the speciality about even the gold jewellery is that the brand repurposes gold and it is all completely handcrafted. For clothing, we kept the pricing between `1,500 to `3,000.”