Eco-friendly and fabulous: 5 brands that are working towards sustainable fashion
With fabric scraps being a frequent addition to landfills, these brands are working to minimise the waste and are building sustainable fashion to create a better future for our planet.
While we tend to get lost in the glamour world of fashion, we often fail to realise that the industry is one of the major contributors to environmental pollution. Increased spending, lifestyle changes, and various other factors have contributed to this problem.
While a majority of the fabric scraps from the fashion industry end up in landfills, the way these raw materials are sourced, have cost more lives than money.
For example, genetically modified cotton has been a major contributor to increasing farmer suicides in the country. On the other hand, leather, wool, silk, and jewellery, among others, have been demanding the hides and lives of a wide species of animals.
Meanwhile, many fashion brands are pivoting to a sustainable future with their eco-friendly, vegan, and organic range of clothes and accessories.
SocialStory lists five brands that are building sustainable fashion to create a better future for our planet.
Ka-Sha
Customised shoes made from recycled material (Image: Ka-Sha)
An acronym for its designer Karishma Shahani-Khan, Pune-based Ka-Sha focusses on fashion made out of reused and repurposed fabrics. The brand makes the best out of the fabric waste and repurposes them into different accessories and clothing items.
Excessive cloth scraps, plastics, sacks, ribbons, etc., are converted into various accessories, jackets, kurtis, dresses, and other items, with a few embellishments of good taste.
In fact, the designer made a jacket out of single-use plastic bags, as well as converted an onion sack to make an entirely different cloth, with wool and ribbons.
Through its ‘Heart to Haat’ initiative, it is trying to find innovations linked to sustainable fashion and waste management.
No Nasties
No Nasties uses organic cotton to promote farmer livelihoods (Image: No Nasties)
Being in the sustainable fashion sector since 2011, Goa-based No Nasties is well-versed in its sustainability game. With the increasing number of farmer suicides across India, owing to modern farming and genetically modified crops, the startup — founded by Apurva Kothari — aims to use organic cotton and provides fair trade prices to the farmers. In fact, it is the first clothing brand to get Fairtrade license in India.
Moreover, the brand does not use silk, leather, fur, bone, shell, and wool in its offerings, deeming it to be vegan. The brand claims that its products are free of any kind of animal testing and cruelty.
The brand obtains its cotton from Chetna Organic — a farmer-owned co-operative focussed on sustainable farming — and produces its fabrics with the help of Rajalakshmi Cotton Mills.
Doodlage
Stationery products (Image: Doodlage)
Back in the day, people believed in making the best out of their clothes and accessories, using them as much as mending could hold. But, today, there’s a turn towards an excessive need for novelty, which is directly impacting the earth.
Intending to address this pressing issue, Delhi startup Doodlage, founded by Kriti Tulu, tries to upcycle factory waste, fashion wastes, etc., as much as possible to create new fabrics for clothes with better longevity.
With its goal towards zero waste production, Doodlage makes use of other reusable wastes to convert them into accessories, paper products, and stationery.
Button Masala
Button Masala's no-stitch clothing
A simple joinery system to make sustainable clothing, Anuj Sharma founded Button Masala uses only buttons and rubber bands to stitch its clothes. According to the startup, the method is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most sustainable way of producing fabrics.
In fact, the technique also ensures that there is no wastage of fabric. The brand also conducts workshops to teach this method of producing clothes.
The Ahmedabad-based startup believes it is possible to make not just clothes but accessories, curtains, cushion covers, bags, shoes, furniture, and much more with this method.
Ba No Batwo
Fabric postcards (Image: Ba No Batwo)
The employees at Ba No Batwo refer to themselves as the ‘modern-day ragpickers.’ Started in 2015 by Gargi Parmar, the Aurangabad-based organisation uses all kinds of non-biodegradable trash like pet/glass bottles, cosmetic containers, old clothes, and textile waste, together with other earth-friendly materials to make home decor items and handcrafted jewellery.
It believes in cleaning the environment with paintbrushes, colours, scissors, and its passion for art. With its sustainable products, it believes in becoming responsible ancestors for the generations to come.
Edited by Suman Singh