Continuing its tradition of championing sustainable fashion, the Lakmé Fashion Week spearheaded conversations on preserving and promoting Indian handlooms and textiles, at the 2020 Summer/Resort edition. The platform took pride in reviving indigenous crafts and bringing artisans to the fore through strong and powerful initiatives and programmes.
A special showcase was designed with three young labels and one women-led social enterprise. The designer labels have been working with craft & handloom clusters like Jamdani weaving from 7 villages of West Bengal, Chanderi weavers from MP and Block Printing clusters in Bagru to name a few.
Jayanti Goenka, who featured her collection called ‘Evolve’, said, “Our inspiration is from Japanese simple living concept, it has a lot of natural dyes such as indigo and kashish, and its all hand printing and block printing, done by artists from Bagru, in Rajasthan. By using natural dyes we’re trying to focus on minimal chemicals. Sustainability is a way of living – rather than doing ten different things, you can do the same with five things.”
Jayanti Goenka |
Sadhna – Women’s Handicraft Enterprise, whichis led and managed by a family of 714 women spread over 16 locations in and around Udaipur city, making Craftmark certified products also displayed their collection. Geeta Patil of Sadhna said, “Philosophically speaking, the inspiration are the women we work with, it’s their resilience and the need for a change that we all kind of identified, so that being their story of struggle, of having their owne voice and identity. Talking about the clothing, we wanted to do something that is completely contemporary, which we haven’t seen; our collection is about connecting the dots. We never wasted anything; we bought everything from the weavers.”
Sadhna |
Riddhi Jain who presented her collection called ‘Medium’, said “My collection is strongly inspired by Japanese aesthetics, based on zero waste garments. Sustainable fashion is a very broad term, and all of us are working collectively towards a sustainable future. It is something that can be passed on to the next generation that can last for long; it’s about making heirlooms which are here to stay.”
Medium |
Pallavi Shantam of Buna added that “More and more brands should work with artisans and cimmunities that work with handmade textiles, follow zero waste. It’s not just about making the clothing, but a lifestyle in which one has to take care of, like how you package your garment, how you sell it out and whatever remains are left, what you do with it.”
Buna | Photos by Viral Bhayani
