Focus on sustainability

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 and handloom clusters like Jamdani weaving from seven villages of West Bengal, Chanderi weavers from MP and Block Printing clusters in Bagru to name a few.

Jayanti Goenka, who featured her collection ‘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 are 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.”

Sadhna - Women’s Handicraft Enterprise, which is led and managed by a family of 714 women spread over 16 locations in and around Udaipur making Craftmark certified products also displayed their collection.

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.”

Pallavi Shantam of Buna added, “More and more brands should work with artisans and communities that work with handmade textiles, follow zero waste. It’s not just about making 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.”