Tag: sustainable

12
May

WILL SHOPPING FROM THRIFT STORES AND VINTAGE SHOPS RISE POST COVID-19?


As we collectively move towards another two weeks in lockdown, the earth has pressed a pause button on most of our personal and professional lives. The Fashion Industry as we know it no longer exists. As global financial markets tumble, non-essential markets shut their doors and consumers lock themselves indoors under government directives, the humankind has come to a standstill. As an industry, we witnessed shocks to supply chains and sales. Stocks are down and retail markets struggle to keep their employees on the payroll. We now have an industry in front of us that needs to be built from the ground up. It’s time to redesign and reimagine our business models as producers and revaluate our decisions as consumers. Since we have to start over again, we can do it right this time.

The fashion industry is particularly problematic due to its swivel-eyed pace of change that it not only undergoes but also promotes. It encourages consumers to buy into styles to stay on-trend. As a result, we as fashion consumers contribute to 4% of the world’s waste each year. As an industry, we contribute to 10% of the global carbon emissions and 20% of wastewater. Fashion sucks up more energy than both aviation and shipping combined.

The question that now arises, is that how do we as consumers start over? How do we get it right? How do we make use of all this time we have to rethink our decisions? Shopping resale is both sustainable and better for the environment. Thrift shopping helps the planet and your cool factor. The saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasureis now truer than ever.

COVID-19 can live on and thus be passed through used and pre-owned items. It is this stigma that can affect the future of the resale industry. This puts us all in a pickle, but is it warranted? It is preferable to shop resale if not advised with the right precautions being taken. It’s time for both sellers and consumers to be more proactive about cleaning and disinfecting items. Wash garments in the hottest water recommended for the fabric, wipe your shoes and bags with alcohol wipes as soon as you purchase them. It is important to take all the necessary precautions.

In light of the events, it’s wiser to shop from hobbyist sellers like Etsy, Instagram pages, and online resellers as it not only provides them with an income but is safer for you as compared to big box stores that have a large number of touchpoints.

In this new post -COVID-19 world the factors that need to be considered before making your new purchase have changed. It’s not about “Can I buy this from a Thrift store?” anymore. It is more about considering questions like “What do I need?”, “Can I make this on my own?”, “How much use will I get out of this?”, “Do I have a substitute?”, “Can this be borrowed?”, and so on. Numerous questions based on lifestyle choices need to be considered if we wish to start over right.

08
Apr

Handpicked alchemy: 5 best jewelry labels in India

From elephantine tusk figurines to antelope necklaces, these 5 labels have adopted animal motifs from mythology, long tropical leaves into metallurgy and curated a bespoke Indian versatility for the discerning consumer, all within the framework of unconventional meets conventional.


Among them is En Inde, an Indo-french philosophy manifested in mathematical shapes enclosed in Indian talismanic structures. Empowering women artisans and macrame weavers from Karnataka, this label also curates a nationwide art sphere into its jewelry. The Longpi black pottery of Manipur and a jute-steel blend of structures find a place in En Inde’s organic niche, as the label also actively engages in sustainable development.


Nassarius, the prehistoric seashell used as jewelry is a name that befits this exquisitely curated label. The bespoke jewelry borrowing inspiration from traditional pearl, gold, and indigenous sets meets foreign perspectives, reimagining handcrafts of India in it’s raw, undiluted essence. They have an organic approach in the making of these statement pieces, keeping the process as natural as it used to be in the yesteryears, making Nassarius a second-generational mystic blend of antiquity and modernity.


Subtly underlining urban art, Anomaly by Anam is a muse drawn onto the canvas of your skin, by the careful deliberation of each piece coming together innovatively. In the modern art reflections, there lies a dramatic sensibility, bringing the abstract into keen detailing of Indian motifs.


Another label that stands testimony to the skill of Indian metalsmiths and artisans is Dhora India, creating urban and edgy pieces that unveil from within the soul of Indian heirloom. Taking stories of the street to the tenacity of silver-brass tinged in gold, this label curates geometric narratives encompassed by the circular framework. This intrinsic storytelling makes Dhora jewelry one of it’s kind.


Manifest design has a niche in creating timeless pieces that explore a fresh outlook on mementos infused with the soul of artisans. Rekindling forgotten dreams, these pieces reshape a conventional vocabulary into an inherently raw and dynamic aesthetic.


In the auld lang syne of Indian craftsmanship, we find these explorative tendencies, from an array of techniques used to create prehistoric coral-bone jewelry to blending gold with brass-copper to form first pieces of metallic ornaments. These labels are born from an eco-conscious mindset of cherishing the ancient process while adapting signature designs to an urban tapestry, manifesting it’s intrinsic handpicked alchemy.

06
Apr

आठवण | Retrouvaille

A window to Indian sensibilities around sustainable practices, Vaishali S’s new flagship store interiors are an intracultural homecoming that brings a raw essence to the room.

Within the doors and windows of the reminiscent interiors are held narrative allegories of rebirth. Vaishali S built this store much like her eponymous label, with scrupulous detailing and a personal touch to each sculptural silhouette.

Doors from the abandoned dumping grounds of Saki Naka and Jogeshwari picked to give these pieces of wood meaning again, transform the unpurposed slabs into a layered family of benches, doors and window frames is a responsible effort that draws tenacity to the store.

To glimpse through the kaleidoscope of these stories would be akin to an autobiography of the store doors:

‘I remember everything. Every single family that has made its humble abode within my confines, and the tear as I was pulled away from my ancestral home. The bumps of the truck dislodged me, and there I was, stripped of all meaning, lying at the bottom of a dumping ground.

I didn’t feel sorry for myself, I only felt the loss of a home. This raw emotion settled into my surface for decades like water seeping into crude wood.

Then, I was picked up and brought back to life. As I survey the grandiose of the Kalaghoda precinct, I feel like a humble passenger in the train of life, sitting next to a colonial Englishman smoking a pipe, but I remember everything.

I remember with fondness the families that closed me into their hearts while building a home for themselves. I hope that when you come to visit, you will sense nostalgia in this simple villager in your midst.’

The ancient craft of handloom weaves everything together here, brings back fusion in texture, an orchestra of form. Shaded in copper-bronze, rock, mud, and wood, the color palette of these interiors is an uninterrupted flow of hue, that has come together guided by coincidental intuition.

This dedication to earthen furniture paints a village scene enhanced by mogra garlands that line crude edge surfaces, draped over the ethereal forms of homegrown fabrics. Each piece has a beautiful choreography that naturally coincides with the ensembles and the art. From the chair that has a grandmother’s lap thread loop around its wooden base to the simple handloom threads crisscrossing across space, the atmosphere created is one of nostalgia, but also of rememorizing a childhood home.

Inside the doors of Vaishali S flagship store, this artistic resonance is absorbed into hand-polished cow dung and mud walls. This perspective of keeping the interiors cool is an age-old technique taking root in the concrete city. A wall with repurposed wood turned into lamps kept integral to the unpolished façade; frames the soul of Vaishali S within its intrinsic storytelling.

The depth to each upcycled piece is a beeline to the zero-waste concept that the label has been inculcating into ensembles since it’s conception. The unspooling thread of Vaishali S store interiors is a journey to the ancestral secrets of sustainability, written with simple words, narrated aesthetically.

07
Jan

Reiki by Word

With a rustic wooden bowl of oil, soft aroma of the essence, a light breeze touching upon fresh flower petals and soothing oriental music…all in a bamboo built room. Like flowing water, your ki or life energy resonates with this exact aura.

In this age of imbalance, climatic disruption and disturbed mind, Reiki pave the path to rejuvenating life. Our earth needs healing, as do we. Combining the two, Reiki brings meaning to the essential intimacy of guided touch.

In the sheer innocence of draping, a hand or a garment, you find your senses blooming, an invigorating joy of belongingness. With plant-based materials- fragmented rose petals, eucalyptus plant, aloe vera, and milk-based layers of cloth, Word handcrafts your connection with nature, to fit your form.

Creating a line of outfits that soothe and evolve around you, inspired by the ancient art of energy healing and sprouting from universal life, Word presents Reiki.

Heal. Soothe. Retain.

04
Jan

Shwaas- A concept by Ploti

Ploti is a community of creative minds pouring their souls into establishing a niche in lifestyle and fashion. Exuding soothing, clean energy, we try to blend simple humanity into an adaptable brand impression.

Shwaas Ploti as a concept took birth through our belief in keeping this humanity behind any process alive and thriving. Keeping the trend to a minimum, and maintaining a sustainably rooted attitude, we, beyond a brand wish to form a community that believes in staying true to grounded principles.

Through this project, we endeavor to guide the labels that are mind crafting the inherent Indian lifestyle, holding their hand and together, bringing forth the unique qualities their designs hold.

When Rutuja Kamble, founder of Ploti, first began thinking of creating this medium for promoting sustainable fashion labels, she held a firm line of principle: organic interaction. We cannot hope to build a community surrounding nature and be concerned with investing in longer lives by not being true to ourselves. She decided to start a new project that would exercise the same philosophy.

There is a delicate balance between humans and nature. The key element in giving voice to today’s sustainable fashion struggle is the strategic research that goes behind understanding textiles, dying processes, and zero waste collections. The labels that staunchly practice this are shaping a mindset towards slow fashion.

Inculcating a sensibility in our business model, we hope to be the teaspoon of sugar in a cup of brewed tea, for our essence is to add to the existing niche of a person and help them grow as they help us with their painstakingly developed qualities. With an unwavering stand on organic growth, we want to share an interactive empathy with both, our employees and our clients.

Dedicating ourselves solely to sustainable brands, we want to make their design ideology an open experience for the layman through creative direction.

Deriving from the spark of connection behind any design concept, we strategically extract the thought behind anything. It’s raw and untouched nature works like sandpaper for our abrasive imagination to expand on our client’s philosophy.

Through connecting the Shwaas community, we endeavor to shed light on the honeycomb of layers in the creation, fabrication, and presentation of new-age responsible fashion.