More and more when we consider the role we play in creating a better, more sustainable world, we realise that our choices make a difference so when it comes to buying and bringing something new into your life, we urge you to look locally at what’s not too far from your front door, from local handicraft to slow fashion - you’ll find it’s often the more conscious choice that’ll help our world become a greener place.
Here are all the reasons why.
1.Conscious resources
When it comes to choosing materials for their intended product, a local business will look to what’s available right in their home base. By doing so, they are able to make good use of materials that naturally occur in their area that they can propagate, renew, and revitalise within their environment, an environment that will flourish from that care - a far more eco-friendly system. Moreover, since production takes place within their own community, they will be more mindful of the effect their production has on their surroundings and more often opt to produce through more organic means.
For example, we ourselves craft with local strains of organic cotton within India. More specifically, our Kala cotton is native to the Kachchh region in Gujarat, provided by our ethical vendor Khamir Crafts, and is a strain known to grow abundantly in harsh environments as well as being only rain-fed. Through making use of this resource, we ensure that a more sustainable form of farming is occurring (and that we’re helping uplift it) and our natural ecosystem benefits from a native plant thriving.
2.Small scale
About 80 to 150 billion pieces of clothing are produced annually. With that in mind, about 87% of the materials and fibres to make clothing end up in incinerators or landfills which means we are creating far more than we need on a global scale with the majority of it going to waste negatively affecting our environmental health immensely. Much of this is contributed by large fast fashion labels, the one we all know all over the world, the Zara’s, the H&M’s, and so on – labels that cater to a global consumer base.
Unlike a large business or corporation, local brands, and many slow fashion brands, are often catering to their local consumers, or at least a much smaller consumer base, and have no need to create on an enormous scale required to meet global demands. That’s why their quantities are, more often than not, created at a limited amount and/or on a made-to-order basis.
3.Creating slow
Large scale production depends on heavy machinery to create large stock at a rapid pace in order to meet the demands of a global consumer base. When it comes to smaller, local businesses, there’s more opportunity to slow down the pace of creation to incorporate more sustainable and far cleaner techniques - many of which can be by hand!
Not only does this benefit the craft being utilised - ensuring that it does not disappear from our world, preserving rich traditions and culture - it also benefits those within the production chain. It’s a far safer means of production as workers are not exposed to heavy machinery or toxic chemicals (that often go hand in hand especially considering conventional farming processes) and allows the chain to be more transparent and ethical.
Sources: 1
4.Uplifting local economy
Local businesses care about their community. Not only are they investing in local resources, they are also investing in the people - the artisans, the farmers, the dyers, the workers, and so on. Bringing business to their home base enriches their economy as you create job opportunities as well as opportunities for other local businesses to flourish that lead to economic development. Moreover, “Depending on the industry, local production can make community systems more resilient and less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.” - Source
5.Lower transport needs & costs
“International trade contributes to global CO2 emissions mainly through freight transport. The International Transport Forum (ITF) estimates that international trade-related freight transport currently accounts for around 30% of all transport related CO2 emissions from fuel combustion, and more than 7% of global emissions.” - Source
Needless to say, with local businesses mostly transporting their goods locally or nationally, they contribute far less carbon emissions than global businesses. Moreover, the cost to transport goods internationally is far higher, even when not including import costs, meaning that smaller businesses are able to concentrate their funds on paying their workers fairly and increasing the quality of their products.
6.Lower carbon emissions overall
And with all of that in mind, from smaller production scales to lower transport needs, you’ll find that carbon emissions are lowered considerably on every avenue so that the impact on climate change is minimal!
Looking at fashion specifically, the industry contributes to about 8 to 10% of all global carbon emissions - it’s one of the most polluting industries in our world currently. By ensuring we ourselves are operating on a local scale in terms of our production, we are taking responsibility for our impact and working to reduce it considerably.
Our own actions include sourcing within India through ethical vendors (who also uphold the same conscious values); incorporating local, native resources to create our fabrics and designs; utilizing craft techniques that are often traditionally done by hand or at least do not require the use of heavy machinery; keeping our production and inventory small so that we are not creating excess; reusing and recycling our own textile waste so we are not sending off more pollution into the world. With all these conscious actions combined, we are able to make a more positive impact that contributes to a better, cleaner planet.
Sources: 1]]>This past year, 2023, is a mark of our latest sustainable achievements, and we wanted to share them with you!
Generally, we always aim to achieve these goals:
And before we get into all the stats, our accomplishments truly only exist with your support. With it, we’re able to continue to craft consciously and have the ability to grow, so thank you for being with us through it no matter how long you’ve been with us on this journey!
1.Sustainable Fibres.
Organic cotton continues to be our star fabric due to how incredibly sustainable and versatile it is. Why do we love it so much? Our GOTS certified organic cotton fibres are sustainable due to a very important factor, there is no use of any insecticides or pesticides used within its production process. This ultimately means the fabric created is a much safer one to produce for farmers, workers, and tailors, as well as much safer to wear.
Through 2023, we’ve worked with a few variations of the fibre that’s all provided by our ethical vendor Herbal Fab, those being: our classic organic cotton, organic cotton poplin, organic cotton satin, and double gauge organic cotton.
In total, and of course due to you all choosing pieces crafted with them, we were able to craft with 978 metres of organic cotton fabrics to create many conscious garments & accessories.
2.Craft & Fabric.
To continue on fabric, let’s talk about handmade!
With each year, we do our best to introduce as many designs as we can that incorporate fabrics created or embellished by hand. To create the following fabrics and designs, very little machinery is used in the process and depends more on artisan skill - that means we are able to lower our carbon footprint immensely in comparison to conventional machine-driven weaving and printing practices used by fast fashion brands.
In summary, we crafted with 1020.35 metres of handwoven organic cotton, also known as khadi. We also crafted with 1828.8 metres of handwoven Kala cotton fabric - this particular fibre is native to India’s Kachchh region, a resilient strain that is only rainfed and is able to flourish in harsh environments.
In total, that’s about 2849 metres of handwoven fabric.
When it comes to prints, we hand block printed 1494.25 metres of fabric, and screen printed 740.62. That’s a total of 2235 metres of printed fabric.
To expand on these techniques, the hand block printing process is done entirely by hand from mixing colours, to carving the printing blocks, to applying the motif to fabric. Screen printing does utilise a screen printing machine, however, the process is conducted in an efficient, small, slow capacity by an artisan community that we’ll introduce in this next section.
3.Artisan Crafted.
Handmade means artisan crafted, and in 2023, we continued our strong relationships with 3 artisan craft communities in various parts of India to craft many of our garments.
We worked with printing communities in Jaipur for all our prints, hand block and screen, that includes, particularly, a community in Bagru who have been passing down their art and techniques for over 5 generations through the local families, always keeping true to tradition while working to uplift the sector, and modernising where they can that still keeps their production small and sustainable - hence the use of screen printing.
We worked with handloom community and NGO, WomenWeave, located in Maheshwar, a community dedicated to uplifting women in the sector who are often overlooked and undervalued in the value chain - they create all our handwoven organic cotton, or khadi.
We also worked with another handloom community and NGO, Khamir Crafts, located in Kachchh who are dedicated to revitalising the handmade process and use of the Kala cotton fibre - they create all our Kala cotton fabric.
Both these handloom communities spin and weave their fibres and fabrics, respectively, entirely by hand.
Moreover, due to your orders and immense support, we were able to give all these communities work every month of the year of 2023.
4.Low Waste.
A circular process is one that prevents waste and is efficient in its use of resources. And so, within our own workshop in Delhi where our main production team of tailors, or threadspellers as we call them, operate, we make sure to pick up every bit of scrap and excess fabric that falls to our workshop floor for later use. It’s an inevitability within the process but it’s one we have used as an opportunity to upcycle - meaning to reuse discarded materials to create a product of higher quality. What do we upcycle exactly? Every single one of our accessories!
This year, we saved 1171 metres of fabric from going to landfills, which instead went towards crafting upcycled accessories like fanny bags, make-up pouches, keychains and more.
So, because of all of these achievements in mind, we crafted over 1600 conscious garments & 1800 upcycled accessories.
5.Most Loved.
To delve a little more into what you, our community were loving in 2023, our most versatile dress silhouettes were absolute favourites, with two of them being variations of our Bloom dress, a longtime bestseller - both of which are also made in hand block printed, handwoven fabric, showing just how much you love artisan craft!
These were your top 3 looks from 2023:
1.Tropical Garden organic cotton dress
2.Monstera Bloom kala cotton dress
3.Coral Bloom kala cotton dress
6.How we have grown
And finally, we wanted to tell you that because of all your incredible support, we were able to expand our team throughout the year with a total of 8 new members joining our team, most being threadspellers!
Not only that, our community has grown too! It’s been such an incredible journey so far and we’re so lucky to continue meeting new green heart-ers whether that’s at pop-ups or through our social platforms.
This year, we have been so lucky to welcome in 525 of you into our community - which means 525 of you began your slow fashion journey with us and we’re so honoured you chose us to be a part of it.
And in 2024, we’re gonna be focusing on this key notion: EMPOWERMENT.
With a New Year comes new opportunities and we want to be able to give you, our community, all the tools to build your own sustainable wardrobe as well as lead as much of a conscious life as you can.
Empowerment is all about using your voice, developing your agency and taking control of your life so you can make choices that uplift you - and we hope we can help you achieve that while also enriching the world around us at the same time.
How are we going to do this? By sharing how we craft sustainably and what the impact of our actions are. By also bringing you on this journey and showing how you can make better choices when it comes to the clothes they wear. We believe that the way forward lies in empowering you in taking better steps towards building a better fashion system.
We can’t wait to continue this journey with you in the year to come, like we mentioned, none of this is possible without you, our community, helping us push forward to think and craft more consciously with every step. Here’s to more change to come and creating a greener world in 2024!
]]>And so, this season, we created a campaign to reflect that notion, to focus on the beauty of stories through our new collection, JOURNEY, while spotlighting 10 women with empowering stories who have worked hard to be the inspirations that they are.
Today, we’d like to introduce them and share some of their insights from our interviews.
Why did you start @theweirdandwild?
Q: I started the platform because a friend was complaining that I was sharing all these things on my personal Facebook and Instagram and he had no way to find all the information [on climate issues] he needed in one place, so he suggested why not start a blog or something like that. And I thought, let’s try instagram and make it visual because I had just got my iPad and the first Apple pencil at that time, and I decided that if I started drawing, who knows if this form of visual storytelling could get people to pay attention to climate issues better. So, when I started it, I didn't expect many people to see it, it was really just for my college friends , but the more I did it, the more interested I got in how colours, visuals, cute illustrations could get people to pay attention on Instagram, and I have been experimenting ever since.
What challenges did you face as an advocate for sustainability in being outspoken on climate issues?
Q: When I started @theweirdandwild, one thing I liked is that if I was drawing all these characters they could represent me. I’m a bit camera shy and having a character allowed me to use my voice without having to constantly be switched on in front of a character. But I'm also starting to realise I need to be in front of the camera because it creates that personal touch and connects with a lot of the people who follow me online. They want to know who's behind this voice, who’s behind all the information and all these opinions. So, that has been a big learning curve for me. And at the same time, it’s also about finding out how else I can bring this topic up to more people. Am I just preaching to the same crowd every time? Which is fine because there’s so many things to figure out, but also how can I use art to reach out to people who might not necessarily be in the movement already to get them more interested.
How did it feel representing Singapore as a National Geographic Young Explorer?
Q: I think when I got chosen to be a Young Explorer I was very excited to be part of such a cool community. This round, I was the only Singaporean in this cohort, but there are quite a few nature explorers in Singapore that I was lucky to meet. For me, it was just the fact that there’s someone coming from such an international stage to bring a Southeast Asian voice to talk about these issues and the fact that we do activism differently here, we advocate differently, and the issues that we talk about are very different. I really could connect with Southeast Asians explorers and felt like there’s so much we can do as a region, and being part of this community and among so many Southeast Asian storytellers, it just got me very excited to see what else we could do.
What keeps you going in your journey and sustainability advocacy?
Q: I think with so many people in this space, we always feel like there's not enough being done still, and that’s true but someone told me once that when you’re doing this type of climate work, you cannot really have hope. When you have hope, you have expectations and when those things don’t come true you get disappointed. What you do need to have is faith that everything you’re doing, all the intentions that you’re putting out, will lead to something good and I think that’s what keeps me going.
SHOP QIYUN'S LOOK HERE | Leafy Beginnings waistcoat; Leafy Beginnings trousers
How did you start your career in the make-up industry?
M: I started at 16, I kinda knew what I always wanted. I skipped school on purpose just so I could stay at home and do make-up tutorials and they were low quality, obviously at the time. But I knew from a young age that I loved playing with make-up and I love making others feel good with make-up so eventually it just became a career after I finished secondary school, it felt natural to go straight into it.
Make-up and fashion often come hand in hand, what’s your relationship like with fashion?
M: When it comes to fashion, I actually started out being very much in an intimidated space when it comes to it. I’m plus-sized so it’s really hard for someone like me to find clothes easily and it’s not really accessible. I can’t just go to the mall and just decide I want to go shopping today, it’s not as easy as that, so in the beginning it was a very tough journey to find peace with fashion and to find my creativity through it. Now, it feels very natural for me to go anywhere and approach local brands and I'm quite amazed that they actually have my sizes nowadays, and I approach them a lot more than fast fashion. Now, I find peace, happiness and creativity through fashion. It's a way for me to express myself when I go out and it feels good.
When did you decide to flip the script in how you dress and carry yourself?
M: It was a very significant time in 2019 when I started this movement called #thebodywithin, as a way to talk about my journey with things that I've gone through as a plus-size person like dealing with bullies. I wanted to share my story, and when I did, there were a lot of photoshoots that I had to go through and through those they didn’t try to hide my body. Everyone on the team made me feel really good about how I looked and made me feel really comfortable. And I think that was when it changed my perception because I realised I had a space, a very safe space to express myself and people are curious to hear about my experiences. When that happened there was a huge switch, I started looking at fashion and clothes positively. I started finding clothes that felt good and resonated with me.
What’s your perception of size inclusivity in Singapore?
M: I think I've seen a drastic change [recently] but we’re also still not doing enough. I feel like local brands are doing an amazing job creating an inclusive space and, especially sustainable local brands are making those changes. But when we talk about fast fashion and the majority of the stores here, I still can’t just go out and find my size there, it’s practically impossible. Then there’s this other aspect where brands, when they talk about size inclusivity, it’s very performative, just for the sake of putting themselves out there to make profit and they don’t go beyond that. I feel like as an activist here, the inclusivity and representation here is very much a small space and we can do a lot better in spreading the message and with the types of plus-sized designs that exist because we need more options that won’t have us hide behind our clothes. A lot more needs to be done and we need to push for that change.
SHOP MARY'S LOOK HERE | Changing Season maxi dress
How did dance shape and change who you are from a kid to now?
A: I would say it’s an up and down journey you know, it’s kind of like a rollercoaster, because, like I said before, the journey that dance took me on, it was so innocent as a kid [starting at the age of 3], going to classes, it was all about enjoyment, fun and entertainment. As I grew older, I decided I wanted to pursue dance, but when I was teenager, around 12, 13, it really consumed me to the point where, it really is the dark side, and the stereotypes, and the societal expectations of a dancer, of how my body should be looking, that really ate into me and it affected me in a negative way. But coming out of that years down the road, the joy really came back again because I really discovered that it’s not about how society perceives me, but that the joy of dancing should come from myself, I don't need to dance for anyone but for myself. And I don't need to prove anything in that sense. Dance has the ability to communicate, you can express through art, honestly it’s a form of therapy for me.
How did you perceive yourself through this journey?
A: I was really hard on myself. I think going through the thick of it, it’s hard to come out. I think, how I perceived myself, I drew so much validation from how people saw me. But also that expectation from school, from friends. I think having gone through what I went through, I see myself as a strong woman. Hopefully, with the lessons that I’ve learned it can bleed into other aspects of my life because dance taught me so much about myself.
How did you pivot to becoming a freelancer during the COVID period, what was that challenge like?
A: That came at a time where I was just transitioning out of performing full time, before the news of COVID, I had done one of my last few tours in China, and I had actually had that conversation with myself like do I want to still continue performing full-time and my answer was I was very okay if that was going to be my last tour. I really had that interest in choreographing, and running my own thing, and there was so much more to me in my life than being a performer and that fulfilled me so much but I really wanted to use what I learned through dance to educate people. I love the stage, but I thought there was so much more that I wanted to dive into, in an interdisciplinary way because I think dance is more than just the stage. Dance can be in the classroom, in your home, there is so much avenue to dance. Pivoting from freelancing, the decision to go into these specific areas of dance, choreographing, teaching, therapy, through COVID it all made sense after because I think people started to think about wellness, and what movement means to them.
SHOP ADELENE'S LOOK HERE | Flower Field dress
What was your life like before Looqal?
J: I was in the corporate field, similarly, building brands but different in the sense that there was always that missing piece of pursuing a vision that’s your own. I was in prestige beauty, I started off with PR, moved into marketing and brand building, and thinking about it in retrospect, we understood very well the beginning of the brand [Estee Lauder], it was founded by a solo entrepreneur, a woman, it started in the kitchen of a home, a family home, and the way she started and built and marketed the business. It’s really not that different from what I'm trying to do today. In a way, the corporate world was very different, and yet when you look at the essence of a brand, how it becomes a brand name that people recognise 50 years down the line, it’s built on the same principles, on a strong foundation, that’s what builds a brand.
What was missing in that phase of your life that led you to make drastic changes?
J: It was really about owning the vision. It’s always satisfying when you do a good job, when you achieve your business goals, but at the end of the day the vision is someone else's. No matter how aligned you are, there would still be differences in the way you want to do things, values and principles. Today, being a founder, being able to run Looqal based on my work ethic and personal values, that to me is the biggest gratification.
What is the big vision?
J: It’s to represent the brands that bring life to craft. I’ve always had the aspiration to bring Southeast Asian craft to the world stage. This is really that journey, to tell their stories and to help conserve and bring the beauty of age old, generations old craftsmanship the attention it deserves. Being a Southeast Asian woman, in the past I always thought we had the most beautiful and best craft, and we still do! But I also recognise there’s a lot of amazing craft all over the world, so that vision has broadened to include not just Southeast Asia but communities around the world, and I want to bring them together on this sustainable journey that recognises the importance of giving back to society, the importance of people, the planet and conserving heritage.
SHOP JOYCE'S LOOK HERE | Garden of Strength dress
Can you tell us what younger Yulianna was like and how she grew in confidence?
Y: Younger Yulianna was very shy and quiet but she has always been very curious. So I think at some point my curiosity got the better of me and I had to overcome my shyness, and that’s how I found my voice to speak to people, to hear their stories, and eventually tell their stories to others. I grew more confident when I started working in a small boutique agency where I felt like my minorityness shone. Before, it wasn’t obvious to me, but working in an all-female, all-Malay company, interacting with people in the workforce, it made me question my place more as a Malay woman. Also, I had to overcome my shyness because I was aware there were certain stereotypes about Malay people in the workplace, like they are not as hardworking and such, and I never believed in those, so in a way I felt I had to work against that too sometimes. It wasn’t a particular motivation but it did naturally drive me to want to be a role model and show you can be yourself and thrive.
Can you tell us more about finding and thriving in your identity?
Y: I went from only identifying as Malay, because it’s very generic and easy to explain, to saying I'm Malay Indonesian, but now I'm also deeper in my journey and openly saying I'm Boyanese Menadonese. The reason for this is just that I want to reconnect more with my roots,and it takes some time, because due to the stereotypes I mentioned, there is some hurt, some pain, a lot of confusion about my identity. Through many things like fashion, education and friends, I'm able to accept myself better. In fact, I wasn’t close to my late grandmother, but I remember when I put on her kebaya, I immediately felt a strong connection to her and the women before her, it was a strong force. That was what really pulled me into finding out more about my roots and doing that through fashion. I met friends who are very enthusiastic about traditional dress so through talking to them and getting my own pieces and being intentional about it, I learnt more about who makes kebaya, the history and story it tells, and that’s how I first connected with my identity.
Can you share more about how you advocate for diversity and your community?
Y: We were young Singaporeans and we wanted to know more about the social issues in the Malay community but found there weren't enough resources out there. My former co-founder and I joined our strengths to start a passion project [Lepak Conversations] about what we believe in and what we want to see in the community. Over 3 years, we’re very thankful that it’s gone beyond a passion project, we've worked with government organisations and a lot of different groups to talk about social issues and become a voice for the Malay youth. Whenever they’re concerned about something they come to us, even if it’s just to tell their story or complain a bit, we’re always here to listen because at the end of the day, we are that safe space for them to find community, and do something about things that they care about.
SHOP YULIANNA'S LOOK HERE | Sweet Cosmos midi dress
How would you describe Singapore, your second home?
H: Challenging, It’s a bittersweet thing. I moved here when I was 18, and I didn't have much of a sense of self. It’s been interesting, becauseI feel like I grew up here. I think I saw many growth spurts too in a way. Hershey here has gone through a lot, she’s come to college without any family, like most of us do. And then figuring out who you are post-college, entering the workforce and trying to figure out who you are professionally. Being an expat here is not easy, always on the edge of visa issues, and not really knowing what home is because when you’ve spent 11 years here, what do you call home anymore.
What do you consider a home?
H: I guess it’s a very cliche thing but I think it really is a feeling. It’s about the people I'm with. Sure, you can move to any country and not feel at home, but hopefully you move and find people who are your support system, emotionally as well, they laugh with you, they cry with you, and that’s home.
You told us before we sat down for this interview that the course you signed up for in college ended up not being what you expected, tell us more about that.
H: It took a lot for my mum to send me here. She’s a single parent and she was very protective and she didn’t want me to leave the nest although she knew I had to. There was a lot of me managing that expectation that this was for me. So, every choice you make has to be a bit more strategic in that sense. I think the curve ball started because I wanted to go for design,and I was told I should go for arts because that’s more liberal, more you, you can branch out to so many different things, learn so many mediums. Then I realised once I came here that they changed the course structure, and I tried to change my course and they said I can’t, and I couldn't call home and say, “I think I made a mistake.” What do you do? You try to make the most of the lemons at hand, so that's what I did. I tried to stick with what I knew and learned what my design friends were doing on various projects, interned with design studios, and then pretty much accidentally got into advertising, and there I am 8 plus years later.
How did you find the courage to embrace things that are uncertain to you at a young age?
H: Honestly, when you’re young, you try to control everything. Early on in my childhood I saw a lot of uncertainty, losing a friend at a young age, trying to be a daughter but also a caretaker for my sister. So I think when you see uncertainty at a young age, you try to make sure you control everything, you try to make the most strategic decisions. My way of dealing with it was trying to make the puzzle fit together, you know, what can I do? I think as you go along, with all the curve balls like with college and my career, you realise there’s not so much you can do, there’s a lot beyond your control so you start to look at it differently. You do what you need to do, you never know what’s going to happen so you can’t hold on to it. Hershey back then would be very uncertain about this entire phase of my life but for me now, I don't know where we’re going, there’s a certain freedom of possibility to uncertainty - and that’s exciting.
SHOP HERSHEY'S LOOK HERE | The Meadow wrap dress
What led you to Singapore?
M: Straight after university, I wanted to move overseas. I moved to the UK to pursue my dream of dance, and surprisingly I loved it there, so much so that I spent 3 and a half years chasing a visa to keep going back with the hope of being there permanently. But during my 3rd try, I wasn’t able to go back. I remember applying to 150 companies while in the Philippines. Every day I opened my notebook tallying the companies I applied to and they kept saying no, and I got fed up trying to make it work. And I realised I needed some space, I needed to know what to do next because I'm a woman with a plan, I always had a 5 year plan and this one was not going my way. I decided I needed a trip, the cheapest one at the time was to fly to Singapore. I got here in October 2018 and coincidentally there was a French restaurant looking for a social media manager. I applied just for the sake of it, got 2 interviews, and found myself moving here the January after that.
Were you always this open to embracing change?
M: Ever since I was young, I think because I was an academic overachiever, I always excelled in class, I always had leadership roles and did extracurriculars on the academic side of things, I’ve always wanted things to go a certain way so I know the steps I need to take. Once I grew up I realised I can't control everything, and I can't keep getting mad at the world for not getting the things that I want. The only thing that’s left for me to do is let go and let things be.
Did you always know you wanted to be a Founder of your own business?
M: I think I knew deep inside me that I was meant to start something on my own, so even though I was part of teams, I felt I always saw things differently and thought things differently, so much so that it would be a cause of misunderstandings and that’s just because I think I’m wired differently. At the end of the day, I knew I would start something for myself, it just so happened that I started it [beige. social] when I moved here to Singapore.
What keeps you going as a woman in business and as an entrepreneur?
M: I feel that it’s my calling to do what I'm doing now. As cheesy as it sounds, I felt like I was put into this world to make a difference, and I will only rely on things I'm good at or that I'm passionate about doing every single day. And that for me is helping other brands and other people make a difference, so basically, I feel like my purpose is to amplify the good other people are already doing, and that fuels me every single day.
SHOP MARIA'S LOOK HERE | Endless Fields maxi dress
What was it like growing up and finding your identity to become who you are today?
R: I think when I was 14, I realised I was a little different from everyone else. I think there wasn’t enough education or awareness, and I could not articulate who I was or know what life could be as an adult. But then I think over the years, by meeting people like myself and learning more about the LGBTQ+ movement here in Singapore, I was empowered, and came to accept who I was. I thought I should be a part of this change so that younger people don’t have to grow up the way I did.
What have you learned in your journey?
R: I’ve learned to meet people where they’re at, respect different viewpoints and try to speak to people’s heart rather than their minds, which is way more effective.
Living in Singapore and being an LGBTQ+ advocate, do you think others’ perceptions of you affects your work or meeting people?
R: I think it actually impacted my work in a good way, because now that I know who I am and am confident in who I am, I want to be in a place that accepts that, where I can feel free to be myself and just bring the most authentic version of myself to that space. In that sense, I’ve made better choices in where I’ve chosen to work.
Can you paint a picture of who you were before you grew into your confidence?
R: Even when I was 10 kilograms lighter than I am now [when i was much younger], I was more insecure. Over time, in that journey of self-acceptance, I think that [confidence] also extended to how I look and just who I am. I’m just ready to accept me for me and I don't have to try to be anyone else.
SHOP RACHEL'S LOOK HERE | The Daffodil Sundown dress
Given your professional history in fast fashion, what led you to starting Biekaleidoscope?
B: I’ve always known that I wanted to work in fashion from a very young age. Which resulted in a long study in fashion, a fashion academy and art school 7 years of studying fashion, toolkit very seriously. Had a very nice career in fashion design as well, I worked internationally, and my main focus was designing quality, like really making good garments inside and out. But as a designer, you’re so far from the consumer, that I don’t know if that quality came across. Especially in my last job in Beijing. It was a fast fashion company and I designed too many clothes that absolutely nobody needed. When I moved to Singapore for love, I realised that I wanted to help women make those good quality choices.
What’s your personal relationship to fashion & how does that translate to who you are?
B: I actually dislike the word fashion a lot, because to me that stands for fast and like snack food basically. I always say that I have a huge love for clothes, for well-made clothes with intention, that look good, that feel great, you behave like a different woman, and that’s what I find important. I don’t like to buy much because I don’t like to see a lot of information in my wardrobe. I think that’s also why I do what I do because I like to see myself back in the wardrobe without an overload of information because my day is just getting started when I get dressed.
Can you share more about your view of fashion and individuality and the relationship that exists between them?
B: That’s based on the 4 style personalities that I've developed with my long history in fashion. So that’s also mainly coming from my boutique experience of more than 10 years working in shops. Because often I see that a style is described as office wear for example, and I feel like that’s a style of dress and there’s something on top of that. I feel like there’s 4 styles that you’re a combination of two or more. So that’s The Classics, The Romantics, The Gender Neutrals, and The Stylists. Gender Neutrals is one of my styles I’m most comfortable in, it’s basically genderless, it's what I’m doing with my children, it’s whatever you feel comfortable in is you. The Gender Neutral is not scared of shopping in different departments.
SHOP BIEK'S LOOK HERE | Blue Palm shirt; The Self Love Club trousers
How do you bring your passions like writing and travel to Sui?
M: Through telling stories. I think one of the main things that we’ve always done from the start with Sui is give a story to every chapter we create, and by chapter I mean collection. We specifically call it a chapter, because we wanted them to act like stories in a book. Each chapter is inspired by travel experiences, memories of childhood, by moments in life, so I think I've kind of threaded that together with my passion for clothing. Many of those who have bought from us or follow us or have followed our journey would understand that whenever we talk about anything we create there’s storytelling in that, and that’s how I think I've merged the two worlds.
How do you manage to come back to yourself while also embracing new experiences like motherhood?
M: Becoming a mum has been one of the most amazing yet difficult experiences of my life. I loved my pregnancy apart from the first trimester, anyone who’s been pregnant will resonate that the first trimester is the hardest one. But apart from that I really enjoyed it, and was looking forward to the next phase. Everyone prepares you for those phases, they tell you to get this ready and make sure the room is ready, make sure you have your birth plan sorted out, but I think no one prepares you for all the emotions you’re going to feel the minute you become a mum. No one really talks to you about the first few months postpartum, about how lost you’ll feel with your sense of self yet you’ll be so in love with this new human being that’s in your life. You love being a mum but you miss who you are. For me it’s taken 1 and a half years to get to a place where I can truly say I love who I am now and I don't miss who I used to be. I feel like she’s still a part of me but I've become a new refreshed version of her. I think running a business and going through that is even harder because the first year, you’re trying to work but you’re not all there, you're still trying to figure out parts of you, you’re trying to sort out how this new schedule works because now you’re responsible for this beautiful little human. But you also have a business so how are you going to maneuver it all? It took a lot of time to come back to finding this space for myself.
What do you love about yourself?
M: I think I love my passion for what I do, I love my way of loving the people that I love and caring for the ones I care about.
What helps you maintain that love for yourself?
M: The women around me, 100%. My mum, my daughter, my grandmums, they've been pillars in my life. My friends. I would also say being an entrepreneur and being surrounded by the community we have in Singapore. Being able to be on this journey, creating all the experiences that I've gone through has given me tools to sort of be able to keep me going whenever I'm in a place where I feel like I can't do this.
How do the changes in your story translate to changes in your fashion sense?
M: I think it was really difficult the first few months [after birth]. I absolutely had no idea how to identify my clothes to my body, I struggled with it but eventually there were a few things that happened. One of the most empowering things was when that self love grows, you tend to be happy with the things that exist in your wardrobe and you don’t mind re-wearing them. And secondly, what changed for me was that I'm sure of what I want to introduce to my wardrobe. So I don't feel like I stressed any differently, I feel like my sense of style is similar but I'm much more sure of what I know will make me feel good when I wear it. I was talking to someone the other day and we were talking about how clothes make your soul feel good as well, so I'm a lot more sure if today I want to wear shorts and a t-shirt, it doesn’t matter what I'm up to, I'll wear it because it makes me feel good. I feel like that's the difference that’s come my way. And I think that’s translated into all the silhouettes and pieces that we’ve crafted with Sui, we want to be able to offer that sort of comfort when you buy something.
SHOP MAHIMA'S LOOK HERE | Bright Love shirt; Bright Love trousers
The Journey collection is now live at https://www.wearesui.com/ and everyone is invited to follow the #SUIISSHE campaign on https://www.instagram.com/wearesui/.
And where there are fashion trends, there are ‘ideal’ beauty and body standards. Each feeds into each other and each often preys, either directly or indirectly, on our insecurities. With that in mind, the connection can be made that our internalised insecurities have an outward impact on the health of our planet too - this is the core of what we want to explore a bit today.
In our society today, we are obsessed with how we appear publicly. It’s not a new phenomena, in fact, most of us subconsciously will make judgments of physical appearance alone and may even determine how we treat different individuals. It is the age-old stereotype that beautiful is good and ugly is bad [Source]. So, how do we determine what’s beautiful?
From the 80s to today
Throughout recent decades, we have seen the distinct rise and fall of fashion trends that also coincide with the ‘ideal body type’. Outlined by this CNN article, the 1980s through to the 90s saw the rise of the Supermodel and the ideal being thin and toned, then, nearing closer to the 2000s, waif-like figures that models such as Kate Moss were known for. At this time, the World Health Organization was also sounding the alarm about the growing global obesity epidemic, and so, not so coincidentally, the 90s saw anorexia nervosa associated with the highest rate of mortality among all mental disorders.
In the 2000s, this social condition continued and seems to worsen. This Common Sense Media report published in 2015 “found that between 1999 and 2006, hospitalizations for eating disorders in the US spiked 119% among children under age 12.”
As we move into the 2010s and in the aftermath of a few decades of collective low self-esteem, we see a positive shift, one that embraces more diversity.
“That trend appears to correlate with the use of social media, where diverse types are represented by everyday users online. Of course, social media can also give some teens a negative body image. A Common Sense Media survey found that more than a quarter of teens who are active online stress about how they look in posted photos. On the other hand, the rise of social media has allowed for real women to celebrate real body types.”
But this doesn’t mean that social pressures became non-existent. Yes, there certainly became more diversity in our media and we began to see all sorts of bodies on TV and on the runway, but we still are told that that body still needs to be pretty. The Kardashians, for example, may have popularized a more curvaceous slim-thick figure, but that figure still requires a thin waist and fat in the ‘right’ places, which offset the rise of the infamous BBL surgery, one of the most dangerous aesthetic surgeries to undergo - since 2015, the number of this surgery grew globally by 77.6%.
And finally, we come to today, where, as cycles usually do, we have circled back to idealizing the ultra thin body type of the 90s. The “micro-mini” skirt is back; Bella Hadid closed out Paris fashion week at Coperni by getting a dress spray-painted onto her skin; the Kardashians seem to be turning away from their curves to embrace slimmer figures; and the hashtag #thinspo became popularized worldwide on Instagram and TikTok to the point where the platforms banned it to dissuade dangerous ideals.
And so, with these ideals coming in and out of the mainstream, it’s not surprising to find that we treat our bodies with as much care as we treat our clothing - something to be changed regularly, never satisfied with what we already have.
Why should we be aware of how we view our bodies?
Body ideals affect fashion trends and vice-versa, and it simply just isn’t sustainable. With the way we rapidly cycle through trends, we are producing an immense amount of clothing all over the world at an incredibly rapid rate with the industry producing more than 100 to 150 billion items of clothing per year [Source] while also wasting 92 million tons of textiles annually [Source].
There are many ways we can battle against this, choosing better; using our voices loudly to ask for better from governments and brands; being smarter with the current clothing we already have; but what we think would certainly cause a large conscious shift is loving the bodies we’re in so that we’re not swayed by what’s in-trend. Once we do so, we can choose silhouettes we actually love and flatter us and have a better attachment to the physical things we bring into our lives.
Thoughts from conscious minds
Recently, we had the pleasure of meeting the makers of the Changing Room project, a film that explores the theme of insecurities and how it impacts the planet.
Thammika Songkaeo, the film’s Creative Producer, goes more in-depth about the purpose of the project, “This film is a collaboration with dancers and those that might not necessarily self-identify immediately as environmentalists. And we did that on purpose because we felt like it makes no sense to continue preaching to the choir. And it was very clear to our team that no matter where we are as people as individuals all of us do have a through-line with environment… So, even if you're not a self-professed environmentalist, come to Changing Room because you have a place in it, come via the lens of body image, come via the lens of self-love."
She also told us more about her journey of self-love:
“My tipping point with fashion and sustainability intersected with the moment that I really found how much I loved and respected myself. And I would say that now that I'm in my mid 30s, I've gone through a lot in life, and when I say a lot, I really mean a range of problems, from financial to romantic to friendships, and I think at one point in life, a few years ago was when I realized that what makes me up is my incredible ability to respect myself, coupled with my ability to continually love and show love to other people. Even those that people say don't deserve it. So for me, I realized that what made me up was something very deep down at my core and whatever I wore as clothes was really just a way to take that body and that mass of awesomeness somewhere. So, it stopped mattering what I wore in the sense that I felt like my clothes just brought my core to somewhere else to present itself rather than my clothes made me up. So, my clothes became a lot of thrifted stuff, a lot of second-hand stuff, a lot of hand-me-downs.They basically stopped defining me and they allowed me to think, who am I underneath all of this? Because all of this on the outside can and will change anyways.But who am I in a sense that cannot be changed?And after I found out who that person was, I realised that I don't need to buy new fast fashion items to continually look like I want to present myself in specific ways. I'm just me always anyways.”
Adelene Stanley, creative director & choreographer, and Ahilya, dancer and collaborator, both of whom helped conceptualise and star in Changing Room, described the film as a means to share the message that self-love translates to care for the planet, that once we better love our bodies, we're able to connect that to our surroundings and be better at taking heed of our outward actions.
“For me, I used to be the girl that had wardrobes of clothes. I only wore pieces once or twice, and I'm very guilty of just kind of buying a lot. It got to the point where I felt it was just too excessive. And I had more and more conversations with people who are really close to me and dear to my heart, people like Thammika, and it really got me thinking of being more conscious about the environment and the clothes that we wear, the materials that we wear. It's not just about our bodies, but it's about the planet. So, I think it's important to challenge this idea of the ideal body type because it’s something that the media portrays and instills and it's something that can be very damaging for people. I think the ideal here is ‘as long as you are happy’, and that is as simple as that. I think everyone has an ideal body type, and the definition here of ideal is ‘if you're happy.’” - Adelene
Check out more on our Green Journal for stories about our craft, as well as what’s going on in the world of sustainability and fashion.
]]>Today, we wanted to share some tips that will help you travel sustainably and make the world a bit greener with every conscious action.
1.Travel consciously.
Since 1970, carbon emissions have only tripled with growing populations and economies. At present, the transportation sector is responsible for approx. 20% of global emissions and is the second most polluting industry in the world, according to 2022 reports.
Notably, during the summer months, when vacationers are eager to go out and explore new places, this time of year contributes greatly to that number! And so, though we can’t control every factor, there are a few things to keep in mind while you’re out and about.
Firstly, consider visiting more local spaces to minimise traveling by plane! There’s plenty of beauty in the immediate world around us, we just have to look around. Secondly, wherever you may go, take public transportation or, if where you are is pretty walkable, consider getting where you need to go by foot or by bike.
Source: 1
2.Leave places greener than they were.
With growing populations and industry, pollution has only grown with it. For example, did you know around 8 to 10 million metric tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean annually and that by 2050, plastic will likely outweigh all fish in our oceans?
With these statistics alone, it really shows just how large an impact we have on our natural environments, just from the daily waste we create. That’s why we encourage you to make the world a little greener wherever you go.
Whether you’re roaming a big city, hiking among the trees or lounging by the beach, make sure to pick up any litter you spot, better yet, make time to do so.
Source: 1
3.Make sure your travel essentials are nature-friendly.
In a 2021 report, it found that within that year approx. 139 million metric tonnes of single-use plastic was generated. Much of these plastics will come from little essentials you come across daily from plastic bags to shampoo bottles.
Our advice is to invest in reusable water bottles and grocery bags, moreover, using bar soaps and shampoos can minimise the amount of plastic packaging that goes out into the world too.
Moreover, always look for the environmentally friendly option! For example, choose reef-safe sunscreens, these will be sunscreens that are non-toxic, paraban-free, or organic; non-nano and mineral sunscreens are usually made from zinc oxide and titanium dioxide that don’t contain nano-particles which means the particles in the sunscreen are too large to be ingested by coral and are less impactful to reefs. Finally, cream sunscreens are less likely to be washed away into the ocean and stay on the skin than spray-ons.
4.Eat local and green.
When it comes to the food industry, it creates a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions:
“Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use directly accounts for 18.4% of greenhouse gas emissions. The food system as a whole – including refrigeration, food processing, packaging, and transport – accounts for around one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Our suggestion? Eat local wherever you go and try to avoid chain restaurants and cafes. Locally owned establishments will often source from nearby farms, they may even grow their own produce, and by making this choice, you ensure there’s less need to mass produce and mass transport foods all over the world that requires mass energy use. Opting to eat less meat also helps as livestock itself produces a significant amount of greenhouse gasses itself - about 5% of global emissions.
And, by eating local, you get to better know a new place and culture!
Source: 1
5.Shop consciously.
And finally, when buying gifts (for yourself or others), do it consciously! This combines a few of the points we already made: buy local, as in sourced local; check if the materials used to create it are sustainable and doesn’t cause further harm when it goes back into the world; and learn if the item is crafted ethically and slowly.
Looking at just clothing waste, a US study found that more than 34 billion pounds of used textiles is thrown out annually - that’s an estimated 100 pounds of textile waste per person across the US population.This shows just how important it is to develop a relationship with the things you invest in, understand where they come from and where they’ll go.
So, whether its clothing or souvenirs, you should also always keep these key questions in mind:
-Is it something that you will keep for more than 5 years?
-Is it made from conscious materials that are either easily recycled or biodegradable?
Source: 1
We hope this encourages you to think and act consciously while out in the world. Like we said, these aren’t just tips for the summer season, but great guidelines for any time of year, whether you’re traveling, roaming around your own town, or staying in.
For more green tips, read more on our Green Journal.
]]>Each season, we dedicate ourselves to improving our craft, after all a key sustainable act that we can all embrace is continuous growth and learning. And so, we’re excited to take you behind-the-scenes once more to show you what’s different (and consciously constant) this season.
Inspired by the tropics & conscious living
This year, we go back to our roots and focus on the tropics with Singapore, our second home, being our main muse. It’s a place of perpetual summer, almost constant sunshine, and vibrant greenery that flourishes in every space it can - a pretty perfect place to inspire a conscious Summer Edit.
And, more importantly, its tropical spaces and abundant botanical flora are things we drew on heavily this season. Tropical rainforests in itself are a hugely important environment within the entirety of our planet’s own ecosystem:
“Tropical forests cover just 6% of the planet’s land surface but are some of the richest, most biodiverse places on Earth. They are home to ancient, towering trees and a huge variety of plants, birds, insects and fascinating mammals. A staggering 80% of the world's documented species can be found in tropical rainforests, which makes them a crucial habitat...and sources of food for both people and nature. They play an important role in the global water cycle, help tackle climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide and provide livelihoods for local communities.” - WWF
With that in mind, we knew we also wanted to be able to bring some attention to all that it does for us, and remind our wearers of how important it is to preserve and nurture these environments.
And so, the way we captured the beauty of the tropics with our shirt dress is through representing the monstera leaf - a plant that’s native to Central American rainforests but can be found all over the world in tropical climates in many varieties. The plant’s symbolism is also something we kept in mind when creating our motif, in Chinese symbolism, the monstera represents long life and honouring those respected in our community - notions that connect to how our pieces are created to last, stay with you for years to come, and remind you to appreciate the work of skilled artisans.
All about craft
The Wild Monstera shirt dress, alongside the rest of the collection, represents our continued effort to craft as sustainably as we can through utilising slow craft methods; partnering with vendors with the same values; all while encouraging a lifestyle that heals our planet. To keep these intentions at the forefront, human touch in our craft is essential, where every single one of our pieces is created with the help of farmers, workers, artisans, and tailors who work with care and skill - all within India.
1.From fibre to fabric
Crafted in handwoven organic cotton, our fabric for this piece is one many of our longtime green heart-ers will recognise. An absolute favourite, the fabric is created by our ethical vendor WomenWeave, who we have been collaborating and crafting with since 2018! We especially love partnering with this NGO because of their dedication to uplifting female weavers: “established in Maheshwar in 2003. Its founding vision to help local women lead better lives by ensuring that handloom weaving is a profitable, sustainable, fulfilling and dignified form of livelihood for them…Where women have acted as “shadow weavers”, supplementing male family member’s work, WomenWeave creates opportunities for them to gain more control over and be recognised for their labour, as well as enhance their skill-set.” - womenweave.org
Their mission is especially important with the history of female weavers in India being invisibilised time and time again, even today, though 70% of the handloom sector workforce is made up of women, according to government surveys, the majority of the credit will often go to men, the common thought being that women only take care of the small tasks within the fabrics production. As a female-led business ourselves, being able to support WomenWeave’s mission is something we take to heart.
Moreover, the fabric they create is incredibly green:
2.Creating our print motif
All our print motifs are designed in-house by team member and textile designer, Anukriti. As we mentioned, we picked the monstera leaf, one, due to its special symbolism, but it’s also a nostalgic motif. This is not the first time we’ve brought the plant to our designs, in fact, we first introduced it back in Summer 2020 and is something that reminds us of the rawness of nature, a notion we’ve always connected to honesty within our journey and our drive to be open with our community.
When it comes to the craft, another one of our longtime partners joined us to create the print motif, Bagru Textiles. A little background on this craft community:
“For at least 400 years, Bagru has been home to the Chhipa — a clan whose name comes either from a Gujarati word meaning “to print” or from combining two Nepal Bhasa words: ‘chhi’ (“to dye”) and ‘pa’ (“to leave something to bask in sun”).... A fifth-generation dyer and a Master Printer, [Vijendra] Viju is founder of Bagru Textiles – a company which builds upon the legacy of his family’s cloth dying and printing business… At least sixteen families regularly work as the master printers, dyers, block carvers, dhobiwalas (laundry people), and designers needed to meet this growing market demand. A portion of Bagru Textiles’ profits support community initiatives for the entire Chhipa community and Block Shop has developed their own program to reinvest in the village, sponsoring health clinics and providing water filters for co-op families.” - thekindcraft.com
By working with them, we’re honoured to be able to bring a unique traditional to our green heart-ers that shows how a generations-old craft can still be accessible in the modern world, all while supporting artisans who work hard to keep the art alive.
We love hand block print for so many green reasons:
3.The final silhouette
And so, our fabric is woven and printed as we come to the last stages, all of which take place at our very own workshop in New Delhi, where it arrives to be handled by our small but mighty threadspeller team. The team is made up of a Master cutter, tailors, machine and hand embroiderers, most of which had a hand in creating the final silhouette.
This silhouette itself is a combination of old and new. We’ve previously created similar silhouettes, whether with shorter sleeves or lengths, here and there, however, we freshened it up for an all new season and story - creating something classic that can go from work to play effortlessly. The look is more fitted around the bodice with a flowy skirt that can definitely be dressed up or down depending on the occasion, truly versatile and super comfy.
Here are the steps taken at our workshop to create it:
And the way we stay green at our workshop?
With every colour, motif, and silhouette, the goal is always the same: to love our planet as much and as best as we can by making conscious choices within our production.
We always want to stay transparent with you, our conscious community, so, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have more questions about our production process! You can also find more craft info through posts in our Green Journal here.
]]>These crafts, on the other hand, take a slower route, a more sustainable one, that not only favours the health of our environment, they nurture artisans and communities. Today, we would like to tell you more about 5 conscious crafts, all of which we ourselves have worked with, and share how positively impactful they are for our planet.
1. HAND BLOCK PRINT
Hand block print is a process traditionally done by-hand where a wooden block is carved into a pattern to then be applied to fabric. It’s an ancient Indian craft, the oldest record of which dates back to the Indus Valley civilisation around 3500 to 1300 BC, with some of the oldest excavated fragments of Indian printed cotton fabric being found in Egypt - showing that even in ancient days, Indian handicraft was renowned globally.
Today, the art is practiced in various parts of India with the root of it being said to be Jaipur, Rajasthan - it was then adapted in Gujarat, West Bengal, Maharashtra, and so on, just to name a few. Going back at least 300 years, the caste of printers in Jaipur, or chhipas as they’re known, have passed down the craft from generation to generation.
The hand block printing process is a long one. Preparing the wooden printing blocks themselves requires around 10 to 15 days, the process being that the blocks are carved by artisans, as intricately as the pattern requires, then soaked in oil for a week or so to ensure the wood is softened. Colours are mixed by hand, then the pattern, using the now ready blocks, is applied over and over again to fabric. The result is a print that is entirely created by human touch.
How is it sustainable?
2. HANDLOOM
The handloom is an integral part of India’s handicraft history. Its roots trace back to the Indus Valley Civilisation; it was a symbol of independence and pride in our traditional handicrafts during British Colonisation; and, today, India produces over 90% of all handwoven textiles.
Although, the art was on its way to being non-existent due to colonial suppression, the sector now flourishes year by year with approximately 4.5 million people employed both directly and indirectly in the space, with about 72% being women. It's the country’s second largest employment after agriculture and exports worldwide.
Within India, there are an estimated 136 unique weaves that exist, and though the weaves vary in form, the art is widely done by-hand from fibre to fabric in this general way. Fibres are often sourced from local farms, utilizing native plants and materials, from cottons to silks, wools and so on. They are then handspun into yarns, which are then woven using a handloom. The result is a fabric created only by artisans through labour and honed skill!
How is it sustainable?
3. UPCYCLING
Upcycling is the process of using discarded materials to create something new, often, of greater value. Although the method has become more and more popular with fashion brands, where they introduce accessories or garments made from recycled/upcycled materials, the notion itself has been around for centuries.
We all may be familiar with the idea of second-hand clothing and mending pieces where the damage isn’t so bad, however, many of us don’t see discarding clothing as a last resort. At this point, we could call ourselves a ‘throw away society’, one that, due to overproduction and overconsumption, is quicker to waste than ever before. Currently, when it comes to fashion, about 52 million tons of clothing is bought and about 92 million tons of textile waste is created annually.
One of the solutions to all this waste is recycling and upcycling, to repair or reinvent. There are so many ways to transform a piece of fabric: a tear in a t-shirt can be patched with another fabric altogether; a hole in your jeans embroidered over so it’s as good as new; or a scarf can become a tote bag! How we think about clothing is tied to how we treat our planet, and by realising that our waste can be of use, by creating a more circular system, we can make our world cleaner, greener.
How is it sustainable?
4. DABU
Dabu, or Daboo, is a mud-resistant hand block printing technique, the name itself is derived from the Hindi word ‘dabana’ meaning ‘to press’. Its origins date back to the 8th century and, specifically, its Indian roots can be traced to the village Akora, Rajasthan, where it is still actively being practiced!
During British colonisation, India’s many traditional handicrafts were suppressed and quashed, including Dabu, but, like many others post-Independence, it has been slowly revitalised in our modern day as the art is now utilised in various areas in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
The process itself is labour-intensive and, as mentioned, utilises one very important, natural ingredient: mud. The way it works is that a mixture; usually composed of mud, water, lime gum and wheat powder; is created then used to print the chosen motif. Where the mud is applied is where the fabric is blocked off from being dyed. The mud is dried, dyed in its intended way, then it is washed away to reveal the final pattern.
How is it sustainable?
5. INDIGO DYEING
Indigo is an ancient, natural dye extracted from the leaves of Indigofera plants. The name itself, “indigo”, comes from the Latin word indicum meaning “Indian”, as the dye was originally exported to Europe from India, where it grows in abundance. The earliest evidence of a fabric being dyed with indigo is around 6000 years ago, and since, has been popularly used all over the world to create brilliant blue hues for all sorts of garments and textile products.
Although today a synthetic version of indigo dye is used widely - it was found that by 2011 around 50,000 tons of it was being produced worldwide - that doesn’t mean the art is completely gone. In many parts of South and East Asia, like India and Japan, as well as places in South America, the slow, traditional way still exists, one that is much more eco-friendly.
To create the dye, Indigofera plants, which look a bit like basil, must be harvested just before their pink flowers bloom. The leaves are harvested, gathered together, and immersed in water, where they are weighed down and fermented. After the fermentation, the leaves are removed, and the water is drained so the solution can oxidise. The sediment will settle and become a powder that is dried and packed into cakes, ready for use.
How is it sustainable?
There are so many ways we can change our industry through making more sustainable production choices.These methods often keep us connected to our heritage, culture and world around us, showing us the value of our roots, and allows us to choose better in our everyday life! We hope this encourages you to choose more consciously and look for fashion that is actively going down the slower, greener path.
What other crafts do you want to know more about? Let us know, we’d love to tell you so much more about slow craft!
]]>Summers, for many, are a time for carefree moments, to bask under the sun, revel in the warmth, possibly jet off on a vacation. For us, it’s also special because it’s a time to feel closer to nature, as the greens of trees and bright blooms flourish, it’s the perfect time to appreciate its beauty at its fullest. This summer, we draw on some of our fondest memories of nature, our roots, the elements of our environment that have always caught our attention and awe - inspired by our second home, Singapore.
From swaying palm trees to frangipanis and dragonflies, here’s some deeper insight into our newest summer Chapter, Tropical Hearts, and why it’s a summer story we can all embrace.
A summer story
Sunshine, clear skies, lush forests, an ocean view, these are just a few things we think of immediately when it comes to a tropical summer season. It’s also what describes a perfect summer’s day in Singapore – our muse. Singapore has always been tied closely to our overall SUI story, it’s where our Founder began the business and started putting roots down for her own family. It’s a home away from home that embraces much of the nature that surrounds it so it’s no surprise that much of its native flora have made its way into our designs in various edits along the years - however, this time around, we’re excited to bring much more focus to this vibrant place.
According to National Parks, Singapore is home to at least 2,100 native vascular plants as well as between 23,000 to 28,000 species of fauna. And so, being so naturally biodiverse, a lot of the flora on the island have been design constants and favourites for us. In fact, the palm tree itself, a plant that thrives in the tropics, is present in our logo symbolising our connection to nature, reflecting how every SUI chapter carries a green heart. The monstera leaf, another that can be found all over Singapore, is also a plant we love to bring back every now and then, whether through print or embroidery. All in all, essentially, it is evident that this story is especially heartfelt, and we took this new Chapter as an opportunity to delve into some nostalgia while also bringing you a refreshed take on it all as we have only grown with each passing year.
And with that, this will be our ‘Year of Botanics’, in which our goal is to celebrate nature, its colour, its joy and its strength through the power of clothing. We hope to bring you closer to nature while helping you add timeless silhouettes to your summer wardrobe through these new pieces, so, let’s talk more about design and craft!
Summer silhouettes & colours
We design for everyday journeys and we know the SUI woman is multi-faceted - she works, she’s a mom, she’s a partner, a daughter and she juggles her roles like many of us. With that in mind, we always want our pieces to be versatile, multi-functional yet unique, something that can go from work to play or day to night.
Our silhouettes are created to compliment those journeys, with comfortable forms that you can move in freely wherever you may go,
When it comes to colours, we wanted it to reflect the bold vibrancy of the season while also making sure to create some classics that suit any time of year - all these shades, aside from white that is kept in its natural hue, are created using azo-free dyes, which do not contain chemicals toxic to our environment.
Mango orange to portray sweet summer fruits and bright sunny days; fresh green for flourishing palms and plants; oat beige, a subtler hue, for beach sands; and, finally, classic white for timeless moments.
Consciously crafted fabrics
When it comes to fabrics, breathability, comfort and versatility are key! We make sure that all of these points are met for every fabric we choose, as well as that each is produced as consciously as possible, whether that’s through how the fibre is grown or how the fabric is processed. These are the fabrics we worked with this summer:
1.Organic cotton: all our organic cottons, including the latter handwoven ones, are produced without the use of insecticides and pesticides ensuring the safety of farmers, workers, artisans (and you) when handled. This season, we have crafted using a variety of cotton fabrics such as poplin, satin, and double gauge.
2.Handwoven organic cotton: this cotton is produced with the help of WomenWeave! A long term vendor of ours, the NGO dedicates itself to supporting and guiding women weavers and workers in the handloom sector, helping them build they’re skills both in craft and business, all while providing an ethical workspace. This fabric is entirely created by hand from spinning the fibres to weaving them into fabric.
3.Handwoven Kala cotton: another handspun and handwoven fabric, this cotton is provided by Khamir, an NGO that supports and provides ethical workspaces for weavers in the Kachchh region of Gujarat. This fibre is particularly special because it’s native to that same region and it thrives in harsh conditions making it an abundant renewable, local resource.
4.Lyocell and Tencel: produced in sustainably managed plantations, these fibres are another renewable, natural, and biodegradable resource. It’s created from wood cellulose, the end product of which is a smooth, soft fabric that’s incredibly versatile.
Slow craft & tropical motifs
As always, we have worked with multiple slow crafts to create our looks, many of which are ours and our community’s favourites.
1.Print: another long term vendor of ours, Bagru Textiles, helped us create our 3 signature prints of the season, here’s a little intro to all of them and why we picked these motifs:
Monstera print - this motif is created by hand from carving the printing blocks to applying the print onto fabrics. In Chinese symbolism, the monstera represents long life and honouring those respected in our community - notions that connect to how these pieces are created to last and stay with you for years to come as well as remind you to appreciate the work of skilled artisans.
Fern print - this motif is created by hand from carving the printing blocks to applying the print onto fabrics. Fern plants are an incredibly old species of plant that can be found in 400 million year old fossils, moreover, the Māori who traditionally used silver ferns to find their way in the dark, also regard them as a symbol of stubborn resistance, and enduring power. The overall notion speaks to a reliable strength and conviction, what we hope you carry out in advocating for conscious lifestyles.
Golden trumpet flower print - this motif is screen printed. The golden trumpet or yellow allamanda flower is connected to spirituality in many ways. In ancient Hinduism, they were used in worship rituals to invoke the blessings of the goddess Saraswati, who is considered the epitome of knowledge and wisdom. In Buddhism, their yellow hue represented the path to enlightenment. Through these ideas, what we hope you embody is the desire to keep learning and growing, striving to become more conscious with every action.
2.Hand & Machine Embroidery: a SUI staple since our start in 2018, embroidery has always been a form we found depicts nature beautifully. Over the years, we’ve experimented with the craft, our own threadspeller team dedicated to learning new techniques, and with each Chapter have grown in creating our motifs. This time around, along with the above, we’ve focused on the flora and fauna that we always associate with the tropics.
Frangipani/champas - found in many subtropical and tropical climates, including South America, Central America and South Asia, champas are representative of new beginnings as well as a symbol of beauty, charm and grace.
Palm - currently, about 2,600 species of palms have been discovered, all native to subtropical/tropical regions. The palm branch or frond is a symbol of many things, a few of which are peace, triumph, and eternal life.
Butterfly - known for transforming drastically in their own lifetimes, butterflies are a strong symbol of metamorphosis, freedom and rebirth. Moreover, amongst many cultures, they have been long viewed as heralds of good fortune and joy.
Dragonfly - another symbol of transformation, the dragonfly is connected to ideas of fresh starts as well as happiness, love and hope.
3.Tie dye: this craft is one we introduced just last summer, one we think encapsulates the mood of the season perfectly! This time around, we depicted the soft pink of coral and sunsets; bright whites of clouds on clear skies; and the oat beige of a sandy beach to encapsulate this carefree time of year.
Our values remain the same with each Chapter, and this collection is no different. With each and every look, we promise a green heart - meaning ethical and sustainable practices in every aspect of our production. We partner with those with the same conscious mindset and we always want to be transparent with you, our community. Like we always say, change can only be brought about with collective action and we hope by sharing our journey, we encourage you to be green with your fashion and beyond.
]]>From slow fashion brand designers to climate activists and educators, pioneering women all over the world are taking matters into their own hands to make the world a better place. Here are just a few inspiring figures we think everyone should look up to.
Sally Holkar, founder of WomenWeave
With the modernisation of fashion production in our age, much of the traditional ways, often, by-hand methods and craft, have become less favoured by large, influential brands. It’s not a surprise but certainly not a sustainable move as we experience the environmental destruction fashion has had with each year that passes by. Sally Holkar has been fighting against this norm since 1978, an Indian-born Texan who has dedicated much of her life to supporting weavers in Maheshwar, and ultimately create WomenWeave, an NGO that connects “the threads of Maheshwar’s history and intangible cultural heritage with sustainable employment for local women today.”
A lover and supporter of the slow art, the organisation brings together the women of the weaving community to, not only give them a safe, ethical space to work in but to also educate and further their skills in business as to operate in the modern market. Gudi Mudi is WomenWeave’s core founding project which “connects the dots between a Gandhian idea of village economy and todays’ rapidly transforming urban market in India, as well as international markets for artisanal and sustainable luxury.” while their 2015 project, The Handloom School, invites young weavers to come along and build their knowledge from computer skills to English.
Kalpona Akter, activist & founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS)
In most recent history, the 2013 Rana Plaza garment factory collapse was what brought stark attention to the hazardous working environments much of the fast fashion world creates. It was a tipping point and catalyst that prompted many around the world to use their voice to fight for better worker rights as well as build businesses focusing on creating safer, more ethical working spaces in fashion. However, long before this tragic incident, Kalpona has been fighting for that very cause. She has been fighting for garment workers rights since the 90s and was the recipient of the Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism in 2016. Her campaigns revolve around worker safety, fair wages and the right to labour unions, and it all began and was prompted by her own experience working in garment factories.
At just 12 years old, Kalpona began working at garment factories in her native Bangladesh.My name is Kalpona Akter. After 2 years working, her first opportunity to advocate for better rights presented itself:
“the management came with the demand that they will pay us less for our overtime pay. And we did not agree with it. We called for a strike without knowing the law and rights. Among 92 men, I was the only young female worker who joined in the strike, and behind of us, it was 1,800 workers who were supporting the strike… They started firing the strikers. So the workers, they came back with the good news that they sued the factory owner… They started telling what they learned, and they invited me to come for that labor law training. A week or two later, I went to that training which completely changed my life… The following morning when I came to the factory floor, I cannot resist myself to share this with my coworkers, and I started telling them, “Hey, we should work like eight hours. We should sign the union application.” And that is how I started, you know, and never stopped.”
Since then, although targeted by the Bangladeshi government and factory owners, Kalpona founded the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) devoted herself to trade unions and activism, has been instrumental in engaging stakeholders, and has connected with government bodies and the UN all to demand respect for garment workers.
Orsola De Castro & Carry Somers, founders of Fashion Revolution
In 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse brought the attention of the world to the completely unethical and dehumanising standards fast fashion production was upholding. It started conversations picking apart how the disaster came to be and what brands instilled similar standards. And so, in order to keep the conversation going and initiate real action, Fashion Revolution was founded that same year by Orsola and Carry. In Carry’s words, “Fashion Revolution is the world’s largest fashion-activism movement. We are a positive and collaborative platform, working with citizens, policymakers, unions, NGOs, brands and retailers in more than 100 countries around the world.”
When it comes to each woman's own experience and impact, Orsola has been upcycling since 1997 through her own label, From Somewhere, that takes textile waste to be crafted into new pieces. She launched Esthetica with her partner in 2006 at London Fashion Week to specifically showcase labels designing sustainably as well as is an associate lecturer at UAL. Carry first established herself through her brand Pachacuti, launched in 1992, that aimed to support “sustainable livelihoods for marginalised, rural women in the Andean region… Pachacuti had been a pilot for the EU Geo Fair Trade project, which aimed to provide visible accountability of sustainable provenance, both for raw materials and production processes.” The brand was the world’s first fair-trade certified company!
Susannah Jaffer, founder of ZERRIN
UK-born and Singapore-based, Susannah has stated how “Growing up in the UK, I was exposed to a very sophisticated retail market where high street brands and luxury labels were everywhere, including online platforms like ASOS. By my mid-20s, I outgrew all that and became less influenced by trends; instead I look for clothes that really made me feel good,” And so, ZERRIN, an eco-fashion multi-brand retailer and media platform was born in 2017.
Previously an editor for fashion and beauty magazines as well as a creative director, her shift to entrepreneur and full time slow fashion advocate came from the need to make conscious brands a bit more discoverable, something Susannah mentions she always found lacking. This lack of accessibility for more sustainable brands really drove how ZERRIN now at all times spotlights emerging designers and independent labels that put positive environmental and social impact first. The platform first launched with 14 brands being hosted to now, almost 6 years later, with over 50 across the south and south-east asian region, including Cambodia, India, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed & The Conscious Closet
If you have been engaging with the slow fashion world for some time now, chances are you have heard the term ‘conscious closet’, a term that was first coined by author Elizabeth Cline in her book The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good. A conscious mind and fashion lover, Elizabeth’s works encourage others to take a more sustainable path with their clothing, educating on the many transgressions the fashion industry has inflicted on our planet and guiding on how we can all do better individually and collectively.
With two decades worth of experience in journalism covering fashion, tech, labor, women’s rights and the environment, as well as an expert in post-consumer textile waste, she’s well aware of the fashion’s global impact and sought to reveal it through her first published work, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, in 2012. Her second work, The Conscious Closet, published in 2019 “delves into fresh research on fashion’s impacts and illustrates how consumers and fashion lovers can leverage our everyday choices to transform the apparel industry and change the world for the better.”, and more recently, she’s turned her attention to organising the #PayUp campaign that calls for labor rights in fashion.
Aditi Mayer, sustainable fashion blogger
Through her blog ADIMAY, Aditi Mayer “explores the intersections between style, sustainability and social justice.” With a conscious outlook, a craving to discuss the injustices within fashion and a yearning to understand how we can all do better, Aditi is a resounding voice, an activist, content creator, and photojournalist, who seeks to empower others to make better choices and share her own journey while at it.
The Los Angeles-based blogger first began her personal sustainable journey in 2014, offset by the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse. From this tragic event, Aditi knew she wanted to use her blog to discuss her opinions on the fashion system and uncover its injustices, exploring topics such as systemic racism, fair trade, and labour exploitation to name a few, all while using her photography to immerse and connect her readers to these human stories - she also gleans much of her knowledge in connection with her cultural roots in India. Today, she’s become a spokesperson within the fashion industry advocating for more conscious systems. To understand her viewpoint and also share one of our favourite statements from her: “Fashion, for me, is a vehicle to unpack culture and beauty. It’s also a tool to unpack systems of oppression and power, while acting as a subversive method to capture audiences, because, at face value, if we talk about the politics of labour and the environmental impact of fashion, it might be overwhelming, but if we talk about a pretty dress that’s inherently tied to those topics it becomes a lot more approachable. Fashion is our second skin, we either use it to conceal or express something, this became a democratic medium to unpack that.”
Céline Semaan, founder of Slow Factory
Céline Semaan is a writer, designer and advocate based in New York with a Lebanese-Canadian background, who shaped much of her views and relationship with sustainable fashion through her experience being born in war-torn Lebanon, particularly the cost it brought human rights and environmental justice. These formative experiences led her to found Slow Factory in 2012, a non-profit that focuses on fashion’s worldwide impact on the planet, aiming to act as an educational hub as well as create initiatives dedicated to its social and environmental impact causes.
In their own words, they work “at the intersections of climate and culture to build partnerships and community to advance climate-positive global movements through the lens of human rights, science, technology, and fashion… Slow Factory empowers people of the global majority to advance climate justice and social equity through educational programming, regenerative design, and materials innovation.”
Kirti Poonia, co-founder of Relove
In a world that produces waste abundantly from single-use plastics to food waste, fashion is one of the top culprits that affects our planet’s environment with a massive 92 million tonnes of textile waste being produced annually. And so, many around the world are trying to find solutions to this problem, including Kirti.
Always being a fashion enthusiast, influenced by her fashion designer mother, Kirti has always had love for the industry. Her career, however, began in engineering where she spent several years in the field before finding herself being connected to and eventually becoming the head of Tata Administrative Services’ Okhai programme and initiative, immersing her into the world she had always admired. Created to support rural female artisans, the project has made great strides: “In 2015 she started with 350 women in Gujarat and today Okhai is impacting 2300 women artisans across the country. In this period, Okhai has grown 6 times.” Fast forward to 2021 and Kirti along with her spouse, Prateek, co-found Relove, a reselling platform for clothing brands to give discarded, unused, excess or preloved clothing new homes as well as help them build their resale store - essentially an online thrift shop designed to combat “the deep-rooted discrepancy in consumption habits in the clothing sector.”
Kate Hall, content creator & sustainability advocate
A self-proclaimed serial smiler and kombucha brewing addict, New Zealand-based Kate is an educator, activist and blogger “who advocates for living and decision making that respects and protects people and the planet.” Growing up in an environmentally and socially conscious family, her interest in sustainability began in her young years and only grew from there. Moreover, her business mind was also something she developed early! At the age of 8 she managed household tasks for her neighbours, at 14 she was managing a holiday home, and at 16 she worked as a nanny and a musician.
However, the pronounced beginning of her slow fashion journey started in 2015 when she watched a documentary on fast fashion that left her changed. She took to social media to channel her frustration with the industry, naming herself ‘Ethically Kate’. Some years go by as she maintains the platform all while working in IT then freelancing as a writer and blogger, until 2020 where she made the move to focus on it full time. Ever since, she’s attended TEDx as a speaker, spoken at schools and workplaces, expressing the core notion that sustainability can be a matter of small acts, and whatever you can manage, acts big or small, can make a difference: “I want people to understand that living sustainably doesn’t mean your life has to look wildly different. The perfect sustainable lifestyle doesn’t exist. But the more we encourage each other to be bold, to say no to a single-use item or to walk instead of taking the car, the more we challenge the norm.”
Christine Dean, founder of Redress & The R Collective
When it comes to sustainability, we all need encouragement, support and the willingness to help others also grow into conscious ways of living. Continued effort and innovation is key in making sure we all are working towards a greener future, one that values our communities and our planet. Founded in Hong Kong by Christine in 2007, Redress is an NGO that embarks on that mission, it “is a pioneering environmental charity with a mission to educate and empower the fashion industry and consumers to reduce clothing’s negative environmental impact by shifting to circular solutions”. Interestingly, Christine’s career did not start in fashion, in fact, before she moved to Hong Kong in 2005 when she first began her research into apparel manufacturing, she was a journalist and dentist. Her journalistic research delving into environmental issues in Asia, however, set her on a different path as she realised that there was a great need for more environmental education for aspiring designers.
It’s no wonder then that one of Redress’ better known initiatives is the Redress Design Award, introduced in 2011, which is “the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition [that] raises awareness among emerging fashion designers about sustainable design theories and techniques in order to drive growth towards a circular fashion system. This educational area of our work gets to grips with the design phase, which is so crucial given that 80% of a product’s environmental impact is locked in here.”
We hope you get to know these women and their journeys as well as seek out other incredible voices in the slow fashion world!
Remember, every day is Women’s Day so don’t forget to cherish the women around you as much as you can, support each other on your journeys and use your voice to tell the stories of those who inspire you.
]]>The fashion industry is one of the most unsustainable industries on the planet, responsible for creating an immense amount of pollution and carbon emissions, and though many of us are not able to change the way fast fashion operates immediately, we can make a change through our wardrobes, through individual actions that can make so much of a difference when committed to collectively.
If you’ve been following us for a while, you would probably have seen us use the phrase ‘conscious closet’ every now and then. It’s a term that was popularized by author and slow fashion advocate Elizabeth Cline through her book ‘The Conscious Closet’, and it essentially describes a closet that is curated in order to reduce harm to our environment.
Her book particularly focuses on shifting many of our current widespread views on fashion and clothing, not necessarily buying but how we treat the clothes that we already have. In an interview with The Cut she states, “You’ll notice that the book is not really geared toward buying. It’s about recognizing quality. It’s about building a wardrobe and loving what you’ve got. It’s about mending your clothes. It’s about sustainable laundry techniques. There’s space between individual actions and structural change, and I think it’s culture that’s in the middle. The culture is these habits and rituals and customs that we develop that need to exist outside of buying.”
And so, today, we want to give you the tools and tips to adjust your perspective to actively tackle and change the current culture, striving towards a more sustainable fashion industry. We’ll tell you a bit more about how you can get started creating your own sustainable, conscious, thoughtful, ethical closet.
Rethinking your closet
The core of a conscious closet is this: it has everything you need.
Now, this may seem simple but the fashion world is known to make us believe that we ‘need’ more than we actually do. Trends cycle in and out faster than ever and may convince us that we need to keep up too.
But that just isn’t the case. There are always silhouettes that are classic and timeless, pieces that can pair with anything, as well as ones that suit our own individual styles and body types. And so, the first important step to take is to evaluate what pieces you wear and what you neglect - it’s a simple idea but will certainly help signal the industry that we as individuals demand better sustainable fashion systems.
Bianca Rangecroft, founder of digital wardrobe app Whering, states in this Vogue article, “We need to be able to let go of clothes we aren’t wearing anymore and sell or pass them on to keep fashion circular. More importantly, auditing your wardrobe also helps you make future purchases you know you’ll love long-term, rather than buying into trends.”
Once your audit is done, your new outlook will inform future purchases, purchases that prioritize buying clothing that do environmental good and are pieces you know you’ll wear often.
“Andrea Cheong, a sustainability influencer and founder of the Mindful Monday Method (a five-step guide to a more conscious wardrobe), says it’s important to consider why previous pieces haven’t worked. “The Mindful Monday Method asks you to analyse what you don’t want more than what you do,” she says. “This is because you’ll see similarities like a certain retailer or silhouette that doesn’t agree with you.”” - vogue.co.uk
Going through this process, you’ll notice how much easier it is for you to put together looks either for your everyday or for occasions. Your closet will hopefully be composed of all your favourites that you’ll love to wear over and over again - and by doing so you’re doing our environment a favour! A core issue within the fashion industry is the immense waste it creates both through production and through our own choice to buy and discard rapidly, which adds to landfills that create toxic ecosystems. Valuing the clothes we have, as well as recycling or giving away clothing we don’t want anymore, means we don’t contribute to that problem anymore.
And so, we’ll take you through the clear steps you should take to create your very own conscious closet.
The Starter Kit
There is no strict way to create your conscious closet, truly it’s up to you to determine what pieces are of most use to you, however, here, we offer some suggestions as to what most of us would need.
1. T-shirts & button-downs.
An important point to a conscious closet is to have pieces that can be mixed and matched with most other pieces. A simple tee or classic button-down are perfect tools to do so, the former for more casual looks and the latter if you want to be a little more dressed up or formal.
[Wild Ocean Heart organic cotton button down shirt]
2. Comfortable jeans or trousers.
Along the same lines as the last point, whether you prefer jeans or a pair of comfortable trousers, they are your best friend for your everyday looks.
[The Holiday handwoven organic cotton straight-leg trousers & The Ocean Tide organic cotton straight-leg trousers]
3. A pair of shorts or skirt.
For those living in warmer climates, a pair of shorts or a skirt of some sort are great to keep you cool under the sun.
[The Ocean Tide organic cotton shorts]
4. A versatile jacket.
A jacket you can layer depending on how cool the climate where you are is, is another good staple to have in your wardrobe.
[The Coral organic cotton shacket & Ocean Oasis handwoven organic cotton crop jacket]
5. THE party dress/outfit.
And finally, for those festive occasions, a statement look that you feel your best in, whether that’s a dress or a co-ord look and so on, is always handy to keep!
[Sundown fitted Lyocell maxi dress & Coral Sunset organic cotton top paired with The Jellyfish organic cotton wide-leg trousers]
We hope this helps you reevaluate your existing closet, there’s always time to make a change and the start of a new year may be a great push to get your conscious closet started now.
]]>And so, as we all prepare ourselves to bask in that joy, we wanted to talk a little bit about how to keep your green heart close so that we don’t forget our conscious values around this time. As wonderful a time as it is, there are a lot of ways in which this season can be damaging to our environment and it all lies in how we approach our celebrations.
Here are a few things to keep in mind and some suggestions.
Some facts and how we can do better
As much as we love the many things this season brings, it is also usually a time of excess. From food to decorations, the increase in unnecessary waste rises around this time in many parts of the world where celebrations become daily occurrences.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, discarded food increases by more that 35% between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. In a UK study, it was found that the nation ate 80% more food within this season than during the rest of the year, however, approx. 230,000 tonnes is thrown away anyway.
Sources: https://commercialwaste.trade/the-true-cost-of-christmas/ ;https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2021/12/15/food-waste-during-holidays-impacts-more-than-just-your-wallet/6423511001/
A solution: The simplest way to solve this is to be more aware of how much food you’re preparing and for how many people. Plan ahead, don’t needlessly leave food on your counter to rot away, and instead store it in your freezer for later.
In a Canadian study, it was found that about 540,000 tonnes of wrapping paper ends up in landfills annually. In the UK, it’s estimated that about 365,000 kilometers of unrecyclable wrapping paper is wasted - “enough to wrap around the equator nine times”.
Sources: https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-holiday-gift-giving-eco-friendly-and-more-meaningful-128387 ;https://www.politico.eu/article/how-christmas-is-ruining-the-planet/
A solution: Instead of using single-use materials, upcycle! Fabric would make a great alternative and can possibly be utilized again, or re-use other paper materials already in your home like old newspapers or magazines. Additionally, look into purchasing wrapping paper that’s recyclable or biodegradable as a lot of them are not - 100% paper would be a much more conscious option.
Many all over the world are tempted to buy whole new outfits each year to mark end of year celebrations. In the UK, it was found that about “£2.4bn [is spent] on new outfits for the Christmas party season this year – yet many items may be worn fewer than three times…
After shelling out an average of £73.90 per person on partywear for the festive period, one in five people admit they won’t wear the same outfit to more than one party or event, according to the study from environmental charity Hubbub.”
A solution: Look to the closet you already have. An effective conscious closet will already contain garments that you can wear to celebrate the season - try out mixing and matching them to create a completely fresh look. If you still are tempted to buy something new, look into buying something that would compliment what you already own; for example, a patterned jacket to match a dress you have in your closet; or try to find something that you think you would wear for many other occasions to increase its longevity.
What’s also important to note is that, due to all of these issues combined i.e. the process to create gift wrapping, transport excess tonnes of food and clothing to meet demand, it is inevitable that an excess amount of carbon emissions are created during this time, one US study estimated “each person produces an additional 0.64 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during the holiday season.”
All in all, a little bit of awareness and thought when it comes to all these aspects can do a lot of green good.
What to keep in mind when choosing a (conscious) gift
Moving on to gifting. The holidays are a way to share the love with those around you and giving gifts are, of course, one great way to do so. To make sure you’re doing it consciously, here are 3 key things to keep in mind:
And finally, on to some recommendations.
Some picks for your loved ones (or you!)
Finally, here are a few picks we think would make great gifts for the season:
[Under The Sea & The Marigold pouches.]
These pieces are a perfect handy item to keep with you as you go about your day. They are upcycled using some of our signature fabrics and contain multiple pockets for all your little essentials.
[Sea Garden & Lily Love scrunchies.]
Need a little pop of colour to add to an outfit? Our scrunchies are made by hand and crafted in herbal-dyed, tie-dyed and block printed recycled fabrics.
[Holiday Bloom & Coral Bloom dresses.]
A community favourite (as well as ours), this silhouette is one of our comfiest that keeps you light on your feet whether you’re staying in or going out.
[The Holiday kaftan & trousers.]
This co-ord is an outfit you can relax in wherever you go as well as mix and match endlessly to create fresh looks.
[Sundown dress & The Purple Reef dress.]
Celebrate all your special moments in something made with a green heart. These pieces are created using some of our favourite slow craft methods by artisans.
There’s so much to celebrate this season and we hope this inspired you to do so consciously. We wish you all a wonderful time during the holidays, stay green!
]]>And so, today, we share a few stories and news from the industry that may have passed you by but we think are integral to keep informed of or at least think more about.
1.The Queen of Slow Fashion on the Art of a Slow Exit
40 years on from the initial creation of her self-named brand, Eileen Fisher is set to step down. A leader in creating conscious clothing, “she is a designer who built a fashion empire offering modern women comfortable yet empowering designs in natural fabrics that simplified busy lives” and made a pointed decision to make environmentalism a core value.
Interestingly, Fisher only took up a CEO position in 2020, in fact the position itself did not exist previously as she, rather, preferred “collaborative teams” making up the fabric of her company (pun intended). The decision to create the position was due to a disconnect she felt with the brand, that, at that moment, it was losing its way. And now, present day, she’s ready to step back again until she removes herself altogether, the intention being to “allow her to concentrate on formalizing her design philosophy so the brand might eventually exist without her”.
But with her eventual departure, there’s also news of her chosen successor, Lisa Williams, the current chief product officer at Patagonia, who shares many of her philosophies in how to approach fashion as a larger company.
2.Selfridges doubles down on fashion resale and rental in sustainability push
One of the UK’s largest luxury department stores, Selfridges & Co, has announced goals to further their focus on sustainable goods. Since its launch of Project Earth, the store published its first impact report attesting that “Since 2020, Selfridges has increased sales of previously owned items by 240%... made more than 28,000 repairs, rented more than 2,000 items and sold more than 8,000 refills of beauty products and other goods since last year.”
3.Mango invests in textile waste start-up ‘Recovo’
In more news of large companies going green, the globally known Spanish brand, Mango, has invested in Recovo, “a re-commerce platform for textile, yarn and production material waste. Through textile recovery, businesses may minimise their environmental effect while giving a second life to textile surpluses. Recovo offers a company strategy that uses technology, traceability and community involvement to promote a circular economy.”
With this development, it shows the brand’s continuing push towards carrying out their Strategic Sustainability Plan that aims to eliminate all emissions by 2050, other notable moves of theirs in recent years include these:
4.Gen Z loves shopping hauls. Can they ever be sustainable?
We can’t mention fashion without trends, and, in recent years, one particularly popular social media one has been fashion hauls - “The #haul hashtag has 24.4 billion views on TikTok, and has been used in 2.4 million Instagram posts and 347,000 YouTube videos. Many creators… will buy clothing with their own money, but sponsored hauls are becoming big business — creators can be paid up to £15,000 for a post, according to one agency source. Return on investment is tracked through views, engagement and conversion to sales.”
And so, it’s evident that, not only is it something many users enjoy seeing, it can be profitable for brands who want to make their names synonymous with the ‘it’ crowd. More likely than not, if you have ever come across a social media influencer with a prominent following, they have, at one point, featured a haul within their content. But of course, the glaring problem that comes with this trend is overconsumption and excess waste.
Fortunately, many Gen Z-ers are aware of our planet’s predicament and there seems to be a slight shift in a better direction as of late. A recent study in consumption habits found that 80% of users will often use social media to cite for inspiration rather than with any intention to overindulge later in their purchases. It’s a way for audiences to perhaps find those with similar body types and observe a fit of a piece before they buy a garment online, and hear an honest opinion that may not come directly from the brand. Thrift hauls have also become more popular in which the focus is on purchasing vintage or secondhand.
5.A New Future: Breathing Life Into A Dyeing Art
India has always had a rich textile history, one that we could still learn from today in terms of environmentally-friendly practices. The art of handicraft and love for fabrics runs deep through the nation and can be seen in each region that often has their own signature fibres and weaves.
Dyes, historically, were very much plant-based, the shades and hues came directly from nature and presents a way to create more vibrant fabrics in a resource efficient way. There’s so much potential in bringing this craft to the masses in our modern day and it’s encouraging to see that more and more conscious brands, like ourselves, are drawn to implementing the art in their designs.
As Anuradha Singh, head of Nila House says here: “You can’t industrialise natural dye. It’s a very slow, patient, beautiful process that takes time. So you can’t just do it in large quantities, which makes it sustainable… and in economic terms? If you hyper localise, you create small community-driven industry systems that are self-sustaining within each other.”
6.Crochet Fashion Is Here To Stay: Here’s How To Do It Sustainably
Another art that has the potential to foster interest in handicraft is crochet. A trend that first grew in early pandemic days in 2020, today, has bolstered many small fashion businesses to create clothing and accessories using the technique as well as encouraged individuals en-masse to try it out for themselves!
“Crocheted items used to primarily be found on Etsy, crafted and sold by artists directly. Unfortunately, when something becomes fashionable, cheaper and less ethical knockoffs always follow, and crochet is no exception. Fast fashion sites like SHEIN and large retailers like Target have hopped on the crochet trend, undercutting Etsy sellers by significant margins.” - unfortunately, like many trends that go viral, it is always met with those who want to capitalise on the demand but, we urge you, that if you ever were to purchase your own crocheted piece, that you look to smaller or at least more honest brands.
What’s more is that the crochet technique can’t be replicated by machines (at least not at this point) so, more likely than not, if you invest in a crocheted piece, you’re investing in more sustainable practices that do not contribute to creating carbon emissions.
We hope this was a helpful wrap-up of more recent slow fashion stories and news. Check out our Green Journal blog for more.
]]>Being aware of where these fibres come from helps build our knowledge of why they are better. Often these slow fashion fabrics, as we call them, affect our planet more positively than synthetic fabrics not only in production but also when they are in your closet, and then when we eventually ‘throw them away’.
So, let’s get started, these are the staple fabrics that we should all be choosing:
1.Natural fabrics
What are they?
These fabrics come from natural sources. They often fall into these two categories: plant-based/cellulose-based, such as cottons; or animal-based/protein-based, such as wools.
Why should we choose them?
-The fibres are renewable meaning they can potentially be an endless resource, if drawn upon responsibly.
-Due to the structure of cellulose, most plant-based fibres are very strong. Animal-based fibres are also quite durable.
-They often are highly absorbent and breathable making them great to keep you cool under the sun.
2.Organic fabrics
What are they?
These fabrics are created without the use of pesticides and insecticides, and may also be rain-fed - i.e. grown naturally without much human interference. These are also fabrics that will/should have been certified to be organic, for example, our classic organic cotton is GOTS certified.
Why should we choose them?
-Due to no use of chemicals within the production process, it’s often safer for wearers.
-The production process is more resource efficient with no use of extra materials/chemicals/water required to simply grow the source in natural ways.
-With the previous point in mind, this also means less energy is used to grow the fibre resulting in less carbon emissions.
-With regard to organic fabrics and organic cotton particularly: “Elimination of toxic pesticides and fertilisers in its production process prevents contamination of groundwater, thus making drinking water clean and safe. Studies also claim that the impact of water pollution of organic cotton is 98 percent less as compared to conventional cotton.”
Sources: 1
3.Handspun and handwoven fabrics
What are they?
Simply put, to create these fabrics, the production stages from raw material to fibre to fabric are all done by hand!
Why should we choose them?
-There is no use of machinery, heavy or otherwise, meaning no energy/electricity use which results in no carbon emissions.
-This sort of production is nurtured by specific craft communities, often rural, which then aids in boosting their economies while upholding a beloved tradition.
-Slow production allows flexibility. Rather than overproducing a single design, the technique can allow for more unique designs and customisations on a smaller scale.
-With the previous point in mind, this also means utilising the handwoven techniques can be incredibly resource efficient.
Source: 1
A BONUS BENEFIT of all these slow fashion fabrics - when these slower ideologies and processes are embraced, it always is advantageous for craft communities and workers. The lack of chemicals and heavy machinery means they are put in safer environments where their health isn’t in jeopardy simply by working with these fibres.
And so, with all this in mind, here are some specific recommendations:
1.Hemp
Although this fibre has been cultivated for thousands of years across many nations, it’s not as widely used as we’d like it to be. Specifically, hemp is a ‘bast fibre’ meaning its derived from the stem of its plant of origin, that being cannabis sativa.
The plant is particularly hardy, capable of growing in harsh conditions with little to no help, meaning herbicides and pesticides are not needed, in fact, the plant itself is said to naturally repel pests. Another way this plant and fibre is green is due to its water usage - it needs approx. a quarter of the amount of water usually used to grow conventional cotton.
Properties:
-Naturally antibacterial and anti-fungal
-Resistant to mould, mildew and UV light
-Highly breathable and insulating
-Very durable
2.Tencel or lyocell
With little difference between them, these fabrics are created from wood cellulose fibres, and although their production process does require a chemical element, it is a more resource efficient fibre than conventional cotton.
The fabrics are a“type of rayon, like viscose and modal. These cellulose fibres are all made in a similar way: by dissolving wood pulp and using a special drying process called spinning. Before drying, the wood chips are mixed with a solvent to produce a wet mixture. This mixture is then pushed through small holes to form threads, chemically treated, then the lengths of fibre are spun into yarn and woven into cloth.”
When it comes to Tencel, which is simply a specific brand of lyocell, Lenzing AG, who owns the brand, creates the fibres in sustainably managed plantations that are dedicated to be as resource efficient as possible.
Properties:
-Very light and breathable
-High absorption and colour retention
-High durability
-Soft to the touch
-Versatile in terms of design
3.Kala cotton
A specific strain that’s indigenous to the Kutch region in India, this cotton fibre could make a big, conscious difference in fashion. Unlike its cotton counterpart used in fast fashion, the Kala cotton plant is contrastingly energy efficient due to its hardy nature where it can flourish in harsh conditions, as well as only requiring to be rain-fed.
During colonial rule, Kala cotton production and demand faced a decline but is now being met with renewed interest because of its vast potential - only an estimated 600-700 Kutch weavers work with the fibre at present. Rural communities and economies would highly benefit from reinvigorating the craft and keeping the by-hand tradition alive, while supporting a much more environmentally friendly practice.
Properties:
-Durable and breathable
-Versatile to design with
-Organic - no chemicals used in the process so safer for skin
For more about conscious fabrics and slow fashion production, check out more of our blog posts here.]]>
Because of it, fashion plays a pretty significant role in impacting the health of our natural environments so, today, we’ll be looking at how it specifically affects our oceans.
How does fashion harm our oceans
There are a variety of ways fashion has made its mark on the health of our oceans. From textile to water waste, these different forms of pollution have taken a very real toll on marine ecosystems that have only worsened with the popularity of fast fashion brands who favour production methods that are fast, cheap, and unsustainable.
This is how we know fashion currently affects our oceans:
1.An estimated 14 million tonnes of microplastics have accumulated on the world’s ocean floor.
Microplastics, defined as plastic particles below 5mm in length, are consumed by marine organisms and thus make their way into the food chain - this can be poisonous to both these organisms and humans. Moreover, Plastic takes centuries to fully degrade and so, these particles will remain in natural environments polluting them for many years to come while also potentially leaching harmful toxins.
More on Fashion’s effect…
Textiles are the largest source of primary microplastics accounting for 34.8% of global microplastic pollution. Microfibres (a type of microplastic) are released synthetic clothing is washed – synthetic meaning fabrics like polyester and acrylic that are commonly used in fast fashion. This pollution enters our wastewater that often ends up in natural water bodies.
2.The fashion industry produces 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions every year.
Carbon dioxide is naturally absorbed by our oceans, a cycle that exists to aid in reducing its presence in our atmosphere but has now created two other issues: the rising temperature of our oceans and their increasing acidity. The former will directly alter climate patterns while the latter poses a considerable threat on coral reef structures and could mean the deterioration of many highly populated marine habitats - as stated by the NOAA, “as ocean acidification increases, available carbonate ions (CO32-) bond with excess hydrogen, resulting in fewer carbonate ions available for calcifying organisms to build and maintain their shells, skeletons, and other calcium carbonate structures. If the pH gets too low, shells and skeletons can even begin to dissolve.”
More on Fashion’s effect…
As mentioned, a significant percentage of global emissions come from the fashion industry. This is mostly due to the need for many fashion brands (mainly fast fashion) to produce rapidly and constantly to keep up with popular trends and meet consumer demands. Therefore, heavy machinery is used in most, if not, all stages of production from fibre processing to final fabric creation; and often these garments are created in-excess i.e. lots of production occurs in a short space of time which then creates mass carbon emissions.
3.The fashion industry contributes to 20% of global wastewater dumped into our natural water bodies every year.
About 80% of wastewater created all over the world is released into the environment without being regulated. This means an increase of untreated sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial discharge within our natural bodies of water that will directly affect marine habitats, polluting them and harming sea creatures. Moreover, there’s also increased risk to human populations who drink from these water sources, As outlined by a UN Water article, “wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, contributing to a situation where around 1.8 billion people use a source of drinking water contaminated with faeces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Far from being something to discard or ignore, wastewater will play a major role in meeting the growing water demand in rapidly expanding cities, enhancing energy production and industrial development, and supporting sustainable agriculture.”
More on Fashion’s effect…
Stated in a Forbes article, “The fashion & textiles industry is a major polluter of water at all stages of the value chain, from the agricultural runoff from cotton fields causing algal blooms that choke rivers, to the dying process releasing a cocktail of toxic chemicals and the washing of clothes releasing microplastics.” And so, it’s evident that it’s not as simple as only considering the water that is discarded in the fabric dyeing process, there are multiple avenues that lead to our oceans experiencing mass negative impact due to the fashion industry’s operations and established systems.
How can we do better
There are always steps we can take to help better our oceans’ health. Through your fashion choices as well as using your voice to demand better from the industry, we can get closer to a planet that is greener (or bluer, should we say) and fosters healthy environments for us all to live better.
Here are some ways you can ensure you’re making better fashion choices:
As always, we hope this gives you some insight into how our choices affect our planet, there’s always ways we can do better to create a greener world, we just need to come together to help make it a reality!
]]>So, today, we wanted to share a few uplifting stories of good green acts occurring around the world that we hope motivates you to stay green as well as inspire hope for a greener future.
With a rapid rise in awareness of how fast fashion damages our ecosystems, young audiences are learning to look for greener alternatives. Social media platforms such as TikTok have been integral in bringing sustainable fashion to the forefront, thrifting especially becoming popular - the hashtag #ThriftTok has 1.2 billion views worth of posts, while the general topic of #thrifting has reached over 4.2 billion views as reported by the Toronto Star in June 2022.
With that in mind, it predicts positive growth for the secondhand apparel market, in fact, it “is expected to grow 127% by 2026, according to a recent report from thredUP… Gen Z and millennials make up a major proportion of these shoppers — and 62% say they look for an item secondhand before purchasing it new.” This is not to say fast fashion won’t be standing strong as the industry is even predicted to grow by 8.8% in the next year, however, half of its consumers believe its industry greatly damages our planet and only resort to continually buy from fast fashion brands due to convenience and affordability.
However, due to platforms that allow secondhand selling and buying such as Depop, there is starting to be a shift in how much easier consumers can purchase thrifted clothing - “ThredUP projects 50% of total secondhand dollars will come from online resale by 2024.”
In more TikTok-related news, the platform is also responsible for sparking new interest in all sorts of new hobbies, a popular subsection being knitting and crocheting. From creating clothing to plush toys, people all around the world are discovering the joy of doing-it-yourself as well as taking an alternative path from buying a favourite or trendy style from a fast fashion brand.
What’s more is the interest in those who take it one step further by building a small business for themselves, for example, “in February, a knitted capsule collection designed by Ella Emhoff -- inauguration It-Girl and now a fresh face in fashion -- sold out on independent platform Mall NYC within an hour… These small-scale operations are often more sustainable too. Limited production capacity has reinstated low-waste business strategies like waitlists, custom or made-to-order pieces, encouraging shoppers to buy with more intention.”
What this could mean is a continuing rise in popularity for craft created on a small scale, something that would mean less demand for fast fashion and a decrease in wasteful fashion habits.
Dotted along Kenya’s and Tanzania’s southern ocean border are hedges of mangroves, a natural ecosystem that has the potential to act as massive carbon sinkholes, absorbing tons of carbon emissions that we, humans, create everyday. Mangroves are essentially tropical rainforests that shelter and serve us by protecting coastlines from erosion and storm surge; as well as providing food and shelter for a diverse array of wildlife, however, due to the fact that the wood from mangroves are highly valued by coastal communities as timber for construction, fuel, and more, these forests have been depleting.
Nevertheless, in the past 3 years, UN agencies, the Kenyan government and other key partners have been working together to launch conservation projects that aim to tackle poverty while enriching their biodiversity. Their most recent initiative is seeking to further this goal.
“Alongside UNEP, the Kenya Forest Service, the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute and partners recently inaugurated the Vanga Blue Forests Project in coastal Kwale County’s Vanga Bay (south of Mombasa), a groundbreaking initiative to trade carbon credits from mangrove conservation and restoration… The Vanga Blue Forests project focuses on conservation of the trees, as the locals have already planted the seedlings. It benefits about 9,000 residents of the villages of Vanga, Jimbo and Kiwegu. The villages form ‘VAJIKI’, a community forest association that oversees 460 hectares of forest land. Jimbo Village has established a nursery with 30,000 viable mangrove seedlings.”
A significantly large climate issue that needs to be tackled is the problem of how we produce our food. In a 2021 report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), it was found that food system emissions were estimated at 18 million tonnes, which worked out to be approximately one-third of global emissions, and so, in order to reach emissions targets set out by the Paris Agreement, changes in how we grow, process and distribute food need to be considered and acted on. One such solution is engineering our crops that are able to withstand more varied or harsher conditions, requiring less room to grow, growing more rapidly, “to more efficiently capture carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen or store it in the soil.”
At present, researchers around the world have been tackling this in various ways, some of which include:
Fungi play a lesser known but critical role in helping forests absorb carbon. There are millions of species that exist in water, the air, soil and on trees; a particular species called mycorrhizal fungi can grow among the roots of trees while another variant known as ectomycorrhizal fungi helps trees and forests absorb CO2 more quickly - “This fungi can also slow down the speed at which carbon returns from forest soils into the atmosphere, helping forests to keep carbon locked up in trees and soils for longer.”
Notably, fungal networks can’t survive without their plant partners, and any damage can take decades to repair, so with forests “disappearing at an alarming rate, with around 12 million hectares destroyed each year, according to the United Nations (UN)” it puts these networks at risk too. To address this occurrence, the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) was launched to map and preserve these networks which have become known as the “Wood Wide Web” - “The global map of fungal networks could provide us all with a more sustainable route into the future.”
We hope this gives you some renewed motivation to keep living consciously everyday and support organisations who are trying to make our planet greener.
For sustainability stories and a closer look into slow craft, check out more from our Green Journal.
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Here you will get a little insight into how we create our tie dye looks and how you can do so yourself at home.
Crafting slow - our method
This summer season is the first time we designed tie dye looks and, because of that, we have had the honour of being introduced to and working with artisan Chand. We were able to work with them through Artisanal Fashion House, who focus on bridging the gap between artisans and brands. Sanya, the founder, tells us a bit more about their ethos:
“Artisanal Fashion House is a step towards becoming a community of artisans, designers, culture lovers, seekers from across the world. Imagine a safe space where you get a fair chance to learn, explore and give back to the community in some or the other way. Finally, we have introduced our artisans to you, who are not only talented but well aware of the current scenario of the craft industry. They are here to share their knowledge and experience with you and learn a lot more through the process. When we say we are trying to build a platform for both the artisans and the learner, we mean to create opportunity, collaborate and preserve the craft in the best form which is sharing knowledge and skill.”
And so, we were able to build a direct relationship with Chand that gives us a better understanding of their own personal methods, making us more aware of how the crafts we integrate into our designs affect the community and our planet.
Here’s a quick little interview with Chand as they tell us more about their craft:
SUI: Tell us more about how you learnt your craft? Was it taught by a family member or something you were passionate about?
CHAND: I learned it from my grandfather, I have been seeing this craft happening in my family since my childhood.
SUI: When did you set up your unit? How long have you been working on these crafts?
CHAND: It was set up in 1945 by my grandfather. I have been working since year 2000.
SUI: What is your favourite thing about tie & dyeing textiles?
CHAND: I can’t pick one thing, everything about this craft is beautiful.
SUI: Do you hope to pass on the skill of this craft to your family? What do you believe the world should know about the tie and dye techniques you work with?
CHAND: Yes, I would like to pass this craft to the next generation.
SUI: How do you ensure that the work you do is good for the planet whether it is saving water or working with safer dyes?
CHAND: We reuse water as much as possible. Obviously we can't overuse it. We make sure it is disposed of well, we are still working on getting a proper water disposal system.
Chand’s method also only uses azo-free dyes, that of which does not contain harmful toxins that pollute natural environments - dyes that do contain azo chemicals are often used in fast fashion processes - moreover, due to the fact that the process is done by-hand, little to no carbon emissions are created at this stage.
Tie dyeing sustainably
When it comes to embracing slow fashion, there are a number of ways we can all be more conscious of how we utilise and form our wardrobes.
One great way to practice sustainability with your clothes is to make use of what you already have - meaning don’t throw away pieces you may not think fit your style anymore but reimagine what it could be, and you can do that by upcycling.
Tie dyeing is a great form of upcycling. The technique can help refresh a piece of clothing you already own and, what’s more, is that the piece will be wholly unique! There are plenty of ways you can tie dye at home but today, we’d like to highlight how you can carry it out in a conscious manner.
1.Be water efficient. Like artisan Chand, be mindful of how much of your resources you use. Waste of many sorts is a huge factor in the deterioration of our natural environments, not to mention that many populations around the world suffer from water scarcity, which is why it is important that you’re aware of how you use water. Recycle as much as you can and make sure you’re only using what you need throughout each step.
2.Work in small batches. In the same vein as the last point, creating only what you need and avoiding maximising while you craft will help you avoid waste in many forms. While working on a small scale, you’ll become more aware of each element that goes into the making and you’ll start getting a feel for how much of each element you truly need to create the outcome you’re working towards.
3.Use natural dyes. There are many benefits in crafting with natural ingredients. Not only are these dyes renewable and biodegradable, they will also be kinder to the skin and safer to be in contact with. There’s a wide variety of dye types that you can find in your everyday that can serve as dyes such as:
Many of these you may already have but you can also find them easily either in your local grocery stores or specialty stores/online for more specific extracts.
Step by step
Now, we finally come to a quick how-to of how you can tie dye at home. Everything you’ll need you will most likely already have in your own home or can be easily obtained so, let’s get started.
Step 1: Prepare your space and gather what you need.
Clear a large enough space for yourself to carry out your tasks, it doesn’t have to be too big but being close by to a kitchen will be useful for some of these steps where you’ll need to gather water and apply some heat to your dye bath etc.
Some essentials you’ll need:
Step 2: Scour and mordant your fabric.
Scour essentially means to pre-wash, so here, before we begin dyeing, you’ll need to thoroughly wash your fabric/garment to ensure residue has been removed. This will also ensure your dye colour spreads more evenly.
You’ll also need to mordant the fabric. A mordant is a naturally occurring, water-soluble metallic salt that bonds the dye to the fibre and acts as a binder, which you can choose to apply to the fabric after scouring - our suggestion is to use alum which you’ll need to dissolve in water and apply some heat to then soak your fabric in.
Step 3: ‘Tie’ your fabric to create your chosen pattern.
Using rope or twine, whatever you have at hand that you can tightly tie your fabric with, create the pattern you want to form in the end.
For some ideas, here’s a quick video that shares some easy tie dye patterns you can try out:
Step 3: Prepare your dye bath and submerge fabric.
In a pot over a stovetop, start prepping your dye bath. Depending on the dye you’re using and how saturated you want the colour, the amount of time needed for this step will vary and will require your attention. In clean water, add your dye ingredient, apply heat to release the colour more effectively, and watch as the water darkens to your liking. Take the bath off the heat once you think it’s ready and add your fabric to the solution while it’s still warm - if it’s too dark, add water which will act like the colour white and help make it lighter.
Submerge your fabric until it, again, darkens to the colour you want, and you can always put it back in the bath if it’s not saturated enough.
Note: Keep in mind that while wet the dye on the fabric will often appear darker than what it will end up looking like as the dry, finished product.
Step 4: Final finishes
Once you’re happy with the colour, it’s time to let it dry! Make sure to keep your fabric away from direct sunlight and watch as the colour sets.
Check out more on our Green Journal for sustainability tips and stories as well as insights into our collections and craft.
]]>With each collection we introduce, we always dedicate ourselves to growing and improving our craft and conscious intentions. Ocean Tide, our latest edit, marks the 9th Chapter in our SUI story and represents the greenest ideals that we’ve developed as of yet that we want to put out into the world.
And so, today, we wanted to share a little more about our behind-the-scenes by taking you through how we create one of our newest silhouettes, our OCEAN BLOOM DRESS.
Inspired by oceans and conscious living
The oceans have always been a muse for us at SUI. From the very start of our journey, you would often come across designs here and there that took inspiration from this vast force of nature. It still, and always will, hold a special place in our hearts and it felt natural that we would dedicate an entire edit to the seas.
From beachy shores to its hidden depths, we were set in creating a story that showed our appreciation for all it represents, a home to millions of marine species, a source of an endless list of resources that sustain human life, and, most importantly, a vital, indispensable part of our planet’s entire ecosystem. Although we cannot begin to express all of these thoughts and praise through every single piece of ours, we did our best to capture its essence through our designs so that our customers could carry a part of the oceans with them in their daily life.
Moreover, this season also presented an opportunity for us to reshape our intentions with this collection and every collection after. With this chapter, we focused on these particular notions: to consider the full journey of our pieces as well as move towards crafting classics that will remain with SUI in the long run, bringing new and old designs together in the form of capsules wherein each piece will find a way to compliment each other while also telling a unique story of its own.
To aid us in working towards this goal, we asked ourselves these question while designing:
1.Are our craft processes lessening our negative impact on the planet?
2.How does the piece impact our planet once it leaves our workshop?
3.Does the silhouette add value to our customers’ conscious closets?
So, with all this in mind, here’s a closer look at the steps we took to create our OCEAN BLOOM DRESS.
All about craft
Ethical vendors, artisans and crafters are at the core of our production. We always want human touch to be a key part of every design and so, whether it’s at the fabric processing stage or finishing, you will find that every SUI piece is handled directly by skilled craftsmen who pour their love of their art into every fibre and thread.
1.From fibre to fabric
Ocean Bloom is crafted in Kala cotton, one of our newer fabrics in that we have only been working with it for about a year, but has quickly become a favourite of ours and our community.
Our ethical vendor who provides this fabric for us is Khamir Crafts, “a joint initiative [created in 2005] of Kachchh Nav Nirman Abhiyan and the Nehru Foundation for Development.”
What makes this particular fibre special is how close to home it is. Kala cotton is a specific strain that is indigenous to India and has played a unique part in revitalising Kachchh’s rural economy.
A quick little history lesson:
“Kachchh has experienced rapid industrialisation since the 2001 earthquake. While the impact of big industry has its positives, it has adversely impacted cultural livelihoods and their endurance is now shrouded in uncertainty. The number of weavers in Kachchh has declined from over 2000 in the mid 1990s to only 600-700 in practice today. Small-scale weavers cannot buy raw materials in bulk, and face the greatest difficulties in integrating with changing markets. There was a clear need to develop a local value chain in order to insulate these weavers from external market fluctuations. To do this, a raw material was required that was locally grown, environmentally friendly, that had the potential to create social value.”
And so, Khamir played a part in creating the solution, that being Kala cotton production, that urged the local workforce to take part in.
Along with the socio-economic positives this fibre brings, Kala cotton has other green attributes:
-It is a hardy, resilient fibre that can grow in harsh conditions making it easily harvestable year round.
-It’s rain-fed meaning no water is wasted that could be used to drink, for example.
-The fabric is very durable so clothing made from it will last a very long time.
2.Creating our print motif
All our print motifs are designed in-house by team member and textile designer, Anukriti, and for this one particularly, she focused on the flying fish as her key design element.
Here she shares what she found in her research that shaped the print:
“Flying fish are tropical and temperate marine species that can be seen off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. They are also found in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Open oceans provide a habitat for most flying fish, but some live instead on the outskirts of coral reefs.The tropics are so close to our heart and brand identity, we had to pick flying fish while we were brainstorming on the motifs for our Ocean Collection.
As the name suggests, yes, this fish can fly just above the water, unlike any other fish.
It’s thought that flying fish evolved a flying mechanism to escape from their many oceanic predators… its pectoral fins are highly modified “wings” that enable them to leap out of the water and glide above the surface. They travel together through the oceans in large schools. When they encounter a predator, the wings help them make a hasty escape. Some flying fish have been recorded performing 12 consecutive flights. This family of fish is quite abundant around the world; very few species are endangered.”
This season, Shankar, a hand block printer who’s been practicing the art since 1994, collaborated with us to bring Anukriti’s designs to life. He first created his own stitching unit in 2007 then a printing unit in 2014, he’s a plant lover, has his own kitchen garden and small field with a horse.
“The entire process of block printing starting from block making to washing of the finished product is my favourite thing. The best part of the entire process is maintaining the quality.” - Shankar
3.The final silhouette
After creating the fabric and applying the print, we come to the final stages which are all handled in our very own workshop based in New Delhi. Our team of threadspellers, which consists of a Master cutter, tailors, machine and hand embroiderers, put together the silhouette.
The look itself is actually a design we first introduced last summer and OCEAN BLOOM is an updated version of our Bougainvillea Blooms dress [left].
We decided to bring it back because of how much our community loved it the first time around as well as due to the versatility of the piece. The fit is relaxed and has a drawstring at the waist that can be easily adjusted so that it’s more cinched or loose depending on the wearer’s style, making it accessible to many.
Here are the steps taken at our workshop to create it:
-The silhouette is cut by Tahir, the Master.
-Tailors take over to stitch each of the pieces together.
-A production manager checks over every element.
-The piece is handed back to the tailors to correct any little alterations if needed.
-Final checks are performed.
We always want to be transparent with our community as to how we craft, valuing transparency and accountability is how we stay committed to our green values, and we hope this urges you to ask for the same from other brands too. Too often we’re ignorant of all the hidden impacts of our piece and it makes all the difference by being aware of all these stages in order to make more conscious fashion decisions.
You can learn more about us and journey so far through our blog posts or follow us on Instagram, we’ll see you soon with more green stories!
]]>The annual global event has come around once again and so, today, millions around the world are observing World Oceans Day (WOD) in an effort to bring awareness to how human impact affects our seas all over our planet. Moreover, due to the fact that we just released a summer collection focused on the oceans, we also wanted to take the opportunity to highlight today’s celebrations and share why it’s so important to observe.
Here’s everything you should know about what this day is all about and how you can celebrate the oceans.
A brief history of WOD
1992 - Oceans Day was first declared in Rio de Janeiro at the global Forum, a parallel event at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that posed an opportunity for NGOs and the public to discuss environmental issues.
The declaration was first inspired by Canada’s “OCEANS DAY AT GLOBAL FORUM – THE BLUE PLANET”, a programme featuring international experts, opinion leaders and those in a position to speak for the oceans’ contributions to sustaining the Blue Planet.
2008 - The UN General Assembly designates June 8th as “World Oceans Day”.
“The need and scope for this was reflected in the broad range of concerns expressed in 2008 by the UN Secretary-General, including implementation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, maritime space, international shipping, maritime security, marine science and technology, marine biological diversity, the marine environment and sustainable development, climate change and regional and international cooperation.” - unworldoceansday.org
2009 - The first WOD is observed, the theme being ‘Our Oceans, Our Responsibility’. This first observance was noted as a way to discuss how oceans contribute to society and an opportunity to recognise the challenges we face “to regulate the global climate, supply essential ecosystem services and provide sustainable livelihoods and safe recreation.” – then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
2022 theme
And so we come to today! This year’s theme is Revitalization: Collective Action for the Ocean, and, moreover, this year also marks the first hybrid celebration of WOD, featuring both in-person programming hosted at UN HQ in NYC and virtual components for global public accessibility. - check the full schedule of today’s events here.
As the theme name suggests, the focus this year is on action, bringing together public and private organisations, individuals, governments, and more, to commit to making real change.
A quick summary of the intention of this year’s event:
“The ocean connects, sustains, and supports us all. Yet its health is at a tipping point and so is the well-being of all that depends on it. As the past years have shown us, we need to work together to create a new balance with the ocean that no longer depletes its bounty but instead restores its vibrancy and brings it new life.” - unworldoceansday.org
Why do we celebrate WOD?
Our oceans play a huge part in all our lives whether we realise it or not. From regulating our ecosystem to sustaining human livelihoods, they are a natural protector and full of resources, however, for much too long, human impact has led to increasing pollution that harms their health and the millions of species that call it their home.
This is what the oceans provide us:
With all of this in mind, it’s evident that there is so much our seas provide for our planet, so, it’s vital that we understand and be aware of how we’re affecting our oceans. These are some key facts:
How you can help
Although the issues seem vast when it comes to the health of our oceans, there are still lots of ways we can all lend a helping hand. After all, change needs to begin with individuals, indivduals who, if they come together and advocate for a greener world, can make a huge difference in the long run.
1.Use and demand plastic-free alternatives - When it comes to your daily life, try to avoid things like plastic straws at restaurants, plastic water bottles, and so on. These single-use items just add to worldwide pollution and, since they degrade over decades and decades, stick around. What’s more, ask that brands and companies you buy from also make the switch to resources that are more environmentally-friendly!
2.Be aware of your daily carbon footprint in an effort to reduce it - Simple actions like switching off a light when you leave the room or taking time away from your electronics can help reduce carbon emissions. Moreover, you can also do this by using public transport or biking/walking more often to get where you need to go.
3.Avoid products that harm the oceans - there are many household items you may not realise contain ingredients linked to endangering marine species such as cosmetics that contain shark squalene. Try to also avoid jewelry made of coral or sea turtle shell, souvenir shells of conchs, nautiluses and other animals, all of which are products that support unsustainable fishing and threaten various marine creatures.
4.Eat sustainable seafood! - Try to choose seafood that is healthy for you and the oceans by buying from well-managed, wild fisheries. You can check out this guide from Seafood Watch to help you make sustainable choices and learn about eco-certification of seafood here.
5.Finally, let you voice be heard - Contact your local representatives, councils, etc. to ask for better ocean conservation policy. Talk to your friends and family about climate issues regarding our seas. It’s imperative that the work isn’t just done by one person so ask others to help the cause along!
Once again, we hope you get to celebrate today in any way you can, it’s important that we always take a moment to do some green good but also know that we have to continue on past today too. Stay green! We’ll be back with more conscious stories soon!
]]>The summer season has come around once again and we’re so excited to introduce a fresh edit to welcome in an abundance of long sunny days - Chapter 9, Ocean Tide!
As always, a new chapter means fresh consciously crafted silhouettes as well as a story close to our hearts which this time, as the collection name suggests, focuses on our long-love of the big blue seas and all its inhabitants. This season, however, will be a little different from others. We have a few new slow craft techniques and communities to introduce you to but, more importantly, we have also developed our green intentions with this collection that we hope will instil a new standard for how we design and value the clothes we make for you.
Here’s everything you need to know about our 2022 SUI summer.
About Ocean Tide
The oceans have been a source of inspiration for SUI for many years. In fact, before we began our journey as a sustainable clothing brand, they were a constant and recurring muse that inspired our writings, transforming our ordinary days into special moments that stayed with us. We have often drawn inspiration from them for previous collections, dedicating a few pieces here and there to their beauty, however, this will be the first time we focus on them throughout a full edit.
Moreover, in our journey and our commitment to constant learning, we grow more and more aware with each passing day just how important our oceans are and how human impact greatly affects it. They are an integral part of our entire planet’s ecosystem, they regulate our climate; are a resource for food and medicinal ingredients; produce more than 50% of the oxygen we breathe; and provide shelter to millions of marine species - our connection to them is deeper than we may realise and our survival greatly depends on their health.
And so, throughout the season, we’ll be bringing attention to these factors, showing how important it is for us as human beings to understand our connection to them all while showcasing the beautiful, mysterious, and vast place the oceans are.
Conscious Capsules
As we delve into our 4th year as a brand after crafting several Chapters so far and, within that, found a greater love for the crafts and fabrics of India, our goal from this year on is to question each piece we create for you. We want to consider not only where it comes from but also where it goes and what use is it to you as our customers - ultimately, we want to consider its full journey.
Our solution is to focus on helping you build a sustainable wardrobe, designing pieces that would be staples in your closet, that are crafted with longevity in mind. They would be:
-Pieces that last
-Pieces that have a low environmental impact
-Pieces that were created ethically
-Pieces that you love to wear regularly
-Pieces that are practical
Hence this season, though our story shells from the heart of nature, we’re moving towards bringing you pieces that will remain classics & moving away from a collection based approach. We will bring new and old designs to you in the form of capsules where in each set, each piece will find a way to compliment each other while also telling a unique story of its own.
Colors, Silhouettes & Motifs
Our colours this season remind us of our favourite beach days, building sandcastles and diving into deep blue depths.
Beige = colour of the sand
Meesa Rose = coral colours
Sage Green = seaweed and colour of nature
Bottle Green = colour of the deep blue ocean
Our silhouettes this season are a mix of old and new, and they carry one theme - simplicity. We believe that a wardrobe that’s simple, with touches of craft, is a wardrobe that’s made to last and this chapter we truly wanted to honour that.
When it comes to our motifs, we are back with new prints and signature embroideries. Our aim with every one of them is to bring out the intrinsic beauty of the seas, to make it so that with each piece you feel you are carrying a piece of nature with you while continuing on your everyday journeys. Our textile designer, Anukriti, describes how she envisioned the Ocean Tide concept that influenced her prints (and sets the tone for all our motifs!):
“The ocean is made of SALT, WATER and AIR and so are we - humans . There are so many similarities between us and the ocean. We carry so much with us - humans carry thousands of emotions and oceans carry entire livelihoods within itself. The depth we are always looking for is within us. The emotions we all possess keep us calm and, at the same time, give us energy. We can be as tranquil as the ocean and as furious as high tides.”
Print 1
The fish represented in this print is a flying fish, Flying fish are tropical and temperate marine species that can be seen off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. They are also found in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. The tropics are so close to our heart and brand identity, we had to pick the flying fish while we were brainstorming on the motifs for our Ocean Collection.
Quick fun fact: Flying fish have pectoral fins that are highly modified “wings” which enable them to leap out of the water and glide above the surface. When they encounter a predator, the wings help them make a hasty escape.
Print 2
The idea behind this print was to depict harmonious undersea life and the mystery of the seas depths. The biodiversity existing in our oceans is incredible and abundant, while estimates on the number of species that live in the sea exist spanning into millions, no one knows with absolute certainty what that number is. Through this print, we wanted to depict the importance of marine life and motivate people to help protect it.
Print 3
The third print took inspiration from our own ethos and love for the ocean. We have been constantly learning how our industry and clothing impact this beautiful part of nature and marine life. Our small steps to reduce this impact and ultimately bring it to no impact clothing is the goal of SUI and we inspire everyone to do so. This print showcases the future of marine life living in a pollution-less ocean.
Print 4
The last print is all about coral reefs and seaweeds. Coral reefs provide an important ecosystem for life underwater, they protect coastal areas by reducing the power of waves hitting the coast and provide a crucial source of income for millions of people. Coral reefs teem with diverse life where thousands of species can be found living on just one reef - they are home to 25% of all marine life.
When it comes to embroidery, we use a combination of machine and by-hand techniques all done by our own production team, our threadspellers as we call them. Our team comprises men and women, tailors and embroiderers, many of whom we have worked with for the majority of SUI’s existence, dedicated to growing greener and more skilled in their craft.
Craft & Communities
Artisans have played a large part in creating many of our pieces and that continues this season. By collaborating with craft communities who dedicate themselves to upholding and revitalising traditional Indian crafts, we’re able to both shine a light on rural arts, bringing them to the mainstream to repopularise them, as well as make our process more conscious as the methods are often by-hand and sustainable.
Meet the communities we worked with for our summer edit…
WOMENWEAVE - this NGO has been our handloom partner since 2019. They provide our handspun and handwoven organic cotton, creating each by-hand from fibre to fabric. This partnership is also very dear to our team’s green heart due to the fact that the organisation and community is dedicated to uplifting the women in their communities. Established in Maheshwar in 2002, they have since actively provided training and work opportunities for these women who are often, in India’s garment industry, overlooked and underpaid.
KHAMIR CRAFTS - this organisation, in their own words, “works to strengthen and promote the rich artisanal traditions of Kachchh district… it [Khamir Crafts] serves as a platform for the promotion of traditional handicrafts and allied cultural practices, the processes involved in their creation, and the preservation of culture, community and local environments.” Our Kala cotton fabric is provided by them, a fibre that is a native Indian cotton strain.
BIODYE - Our herbal dye colours are created by BioDye, an organisation dedicated to dyeing using natural ingredients, which ultimately means they are safer for workers and safer for our environment. Not only are the dyes sustainable, much of their process makes sure to be conscious of its input and output so that its negative impact on the earth is as minimal as it can be. For example, their cotton yarns are washed with non-toxic biodegradable detergent and then mordanted with alum and tannin, waste-water is mixed, pH adjusted with lime and the precipitated material is settled, and insoluble vegetal matter and sludge are composted and used as manure, just to mention a few of their steps.
ARTISANAL FASHION HOUSE - through this organisation, we work with individual hand block printers and tie dyers that helped us create signature motifs for the summer 2022 season. Sanya, the Founder of AFH, mentions that creating the organisation is “a step towards becoming a community of artisans, designers, culture lovers, seekers from across the world. Imagine a safe space where you get a fair chance to learn, explore and give back to the community in some or the other way. Finally, we have introduced our artisans to you, who are not only talented but well aware of the current scenario of the craft industry.”
Shankar Ji is our hand block printer this summer, he mentions “I have been working as a block printer since 1994. In 2007 I started with my own stitching unit followed by my own printing unit in 2014… The entire process of block printing starting from block making to washing of finished product is my favorite thing. The best part of the entire process is maintaining the quality.”
Chand Ji is our tie dyer. He had seen his family practice the art since childhoodd and was taught to tie dye by his grandfather. “It [my unit] was set up in 1945 by my grandfather. I have been working since year 2000… We reuse water as much as possible and we make sure it is disposed off well, but we are still doing our best to improve our water disposable system to make it better.”
As conscious consumers, a sustainable approach to our closets can be an effective way we make our world greener individually and it all starts with just being more curious about the behind-the-scenes. And so, this summer, we hope you do just that and delve into our Ocean Tide edit with that curiosity. Creating this summer story has been a labor of love so we’d love for you to browse through the collection and stay tuned with us on our social platforms for more information and updates.
]]>Earth Day is here, marking another year to bring awareness to the condition of our planet and encourage action to make it greener.
Today, the event is observed all over the world with individuals, organizations, and more inspired to work towards a more conscious planet. Through the decades it has been celebrated, it has grown into a widespread global movement so, today, we wanted to shed a little light on its history, what the focus of this year is and how you can participate (whether in big ways or small!)
Why was Earth Day created?
The day was first observed in 1970 in the USA and was brought about due to growing public awareness of the human impact on natural environments. In the decades before its celebration, a widespread industrial boom saw mass amounts of smoke and pollution being produced while Americans in their everyday lives were consuming large quantities of leaded gas used for automobiles - all with little to no thought as to how it would be affecting our Earth’s ecosystems.
However, this changed with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962 and then, in January 1969, the public witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, that inspired the first Earth Day to come about.
“Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders. By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first of their kind environmental laws, including the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Clean Air Act.” - earthday.org
Evidently, the day was a catalyst for change, and at present, it’s still a day we need to continue observing because our planet’s issues still exist. Most notably, the IPCC’s latest findings dictate how dire the global situation is: “It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F); without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.
And so, it’s important to keep up the good, green work and continue bringing millions around the world together to focus on one thing: creating a sustainable world for all.
It’s also important to note that the work should not solely fall to one day in the year. In fact, Earth Day (the organization itself) is responsible for a great number of campaigns that address a wide variety of climate issues throughout the year. This includes:
This year’s theme: Invest In Our Planet.
“We need to act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably). It’s going to take all of us. All in. Businesses, governments, and citizens — everyone accounted for, and everyone accountable. A partnership for the planet.” - earthday.org
This year calls for effective and immediate collective action!
It’s not enough that we live sustainably as individuals (although it is a great starting point), we need to come together and find solutions that will create lasting, systemic change, change that impacts our communities.
We need to get involved, encourage others to join in the movement, donate to sustainability-focused charities/NGOs, petition for better environmental policy, and more. You can click here for more tips on what you could do.
Why we also need to talk about Fashion’s environmental impact
Fashion is one of the main industries that contributes highly to climate issues.
In short, here are some key facts:
There are so many ways that the industry harms our planet and, although there is growing public awareness of how it does so with more conscious fashion ideals becoming mainstream such as thrifting and upcycling (we can thank recessions and a global pandemic for that), the industry itself still remains wholly unsustainable.
But we can still do something about it. Slow fashion - that being clothing that is made ethically and sustainably - can play a key part in a greener future. In fact, how we view and consider our clothing on a daily basis can create a lot of change in the industry, it’s all about building a connection to what you wear and you can do that by:
By considering these notions every time you purchase a garment, brands will have to start meeting your conscious demands and, hopefully, we’ll start seeing a greater shift in the industry.
In saying that, there are plenty of slow fashion brands and NGOs that advocate for slow fashion that exist today, so we encourage you to support them as well as be loud and proud about it.
We hope you’ll be joining us in spreading awareness and taking some green action today for Earth Day, but do remember, it doesn’t end here! This event may just be a day but we’d like for everyone to consider everyday Earth Day like we in the SUI team do. By taking these steps daily and actively coming together to make change, we’ll get closer and closer to a more sustainable world.
]]>What is a conscious closet?
The term ‘conscious closet’ was first properly popularised by Elizabeth Cline, author of multiple books focusing on sustainable fashion such as Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion and, of course, The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good, where the term came from.
Essentially, the phrase describes building and maintaining a wardrobe that is sustainable. It’s a philosophy that asks us to be more aware of the items in our closet, to know where they come from, how they are made, who makes them, and, overall, understand why our clothing choices matter.
Cline, at the start of her ‘The Conscious Closet’ also first urges her readers to roughly define their style as one of the three: the minimalist, the traditionalist, and the style seeker - by doing so, she offers advice as to how to maintain a sustainable closet in various forms, no matter what sort of style you have, describing how there is no one way to be sustainable. She mentions in an interview with Bustle that she wanted to meet people where they were, whether they worked in a big city and went to an office everyday or was a stay-at-home mum, to push how sustainability can be achieved in every sort of circumstance.
“The book is not just a "how to be sustainable" handbook. I think that's part of it, but it's also an educational tool, and it's about how to dress well with the clothes you've got. It's about how to be a more intentional, savvy shopper. I think is one of the most unexpected benefits of being a more conscious fashion consumer is that it really can help you build a better wardrobe. I think virtually everybody I know comes to this process like, “Oh my God. Now I have clothes in my closet that I actually want to wear for the first time ever.”” - Elizabeth Cline from the Bustle interview
With this in mind, the purpose of a conscious closet is not to restrict yourself in any sense but rather be mindful of your actions and explore other ways you can create a wardrobe that is uniquely yours but also does some good for our planet.
Some rules you can follow when you buy clothing
To start, some advice.
None of us are impervious to trends. Fashion is ever evolving with each season that passes, new styles are constantly being debuted, and with that, we as individuals often feel the need to keep up and be in the know of what’s popular now.
And so, it’s inevitable that we buy new clothing now and then. What we urge you to do is ask yourself some key questions before you make your decision to buy:
Additionally, we also urge that you learn a little bit more about where your pieces come from. By doing so you are able to form more of a connection with your clothing when you know these little details:
The pieces you need (or may already have) to create a conscious closet
And finally, a conscious closet is what you make of it but there are always staples that everyone can have. Here are a few we recommend everyone should have.
1.A basic tee - a timeless t-shirt is a versatile basic for any wardrobe. And what’s great about a piece like this is that there’s all sorts of tee styles to choose from to fit your personal style from cropped and oversized to form fitting. It’s a piece that also can be paired with pretty much anything like jeans, skirts, shorts, overalls and more!
Our recommendation: The Dawn t-shirt crafted in herbal-dyed organic cotton knit.
2.A classic shirt - another timeless piece! A shirt can be a great casual go-to or workwear piece depending on styling. It can be easily dressed up or down, providing a fresh look every time you put it on.
Our recommendation: The Winter Garden shirt crafted in handwoven organic cotton.
3.A ‘summer’ look - On hot days, we all need a little extra breathing room with our clothing. Silhouettes that are fuss-free and comfortable are essential when the sun is shining down on us, so a trusty ‘summer’ look that you can always go to will definitely help you enjoy your days more. This is definitely a look that will vary from person to person because of individual style, so we urge you to find out what it would be, whether it’s shorts and a crop top, a loose-fitting dress or a casual romper.
Our recommendation: Our Lily Love crop top crafted in handwoven organic cotton which you can pair with denim shorts or a skirt OR our Lily Sky dress crafted in hand block printed organic cotton.
4.A ‘winter’ look - On the opposite end of the spectrum, we all also need a warmer look that’s both breathable and cozy. This can be a long sleeve shirt paired with trousers or even a maxi dress. What you can also do is layer various pieces like jackets and gilets.
Our recommendation: Our Marigold Oasis jacket crafted in handwoven organic cotton is a great piece to layer with long sleeved shirts OR Marigold Memories maxi dress crafted in hand block printed organic cotton.
Check out more of our posts for more green advice and stories.
]]>1.GREEN STORY: Women building a sustainable future: India’s rural energy pioneers
Salt farming in Gujarat is hard work and, for many women workers, the work is not under contract with many women paid poorly. However, a new collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), “Renew Power” - India's leading clean energy company, the Indian Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), and the western state of Gujarat, “aims to give these women the skills to build a new, more rewarding and better paid career in the renewable energy industry.”
2.GREEN TIP: Women in many industries around the world are undervalued in varying ways. When it comes to manual labor and craft here in India, it’s a systemic, decades-long norm to underpay and undervalue women’s contributions as well as afford little to no opportunities for women to climb the career ladder.
So, this first tip is simple, whenever you can, wherever you are, support working women, whether that’s through buying their craft or donating to NGOs who empower and train women in their respective fields.
3.GREEN STORY: UAE launches 4 water security initiatives to ensure sustainability
Water scarcity and waste is an ever growing issue in many parts of the world - at present, over 2 billion people live in countries where water supply is unsafe and inadequate. Recently, the UAE has launched various initiatives to do their part in conserving water including creating “a hydrogeological map project to create an accurate spatial database, and a series of digital maps of groundwater reservoirs and surface water basins. In addition, integrated management of dams and water facilities will use a smart application that generates alerts related to dam flooding.”
4.GREEN TIP: When conserving water there are a number of daily things you can do to ensure you’re using only what you need with no waste. This includes having short showers that are under 5 minutes or taking baths, hand washing your clothes when you can, turning off faucets when not in direct use, and fixing any leaks as soon as you notice them.
5.GREEN STORY: In UK, Discarded Fishing Nets Are Being Turned Into 100% Ecofriendly Sunglasses
Waterhaul, an NGO based in Cornwall, UK, lead by marine biologist Harry Dennis, dedicates themselves to reusing and recycling ‘ghost gear’ (i.e abandoned fishing equipment) into sunglasses. The effort aims to eradicate harmful plastic waste from water bodies, an enduring global issue that negatively impacts many of our ecosystems, especially marine ones.
6.GREEN TIP: ”Around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes – used just once and then thrown away.” - with this in mind, it’s so important that we do our part individually to avoid such harmful waste.
Here are a few ways you can do so: aim to always carry reusables with you such as a water bottle, grocery bags, even cutlery to use at your workplace and so on; if you need to use single-use items (plates, decorations etc.) for things such as events, use biodegradable materials instead of plastic; and if you do have to throw something plastic away, recycle it if possible!
7.GREEN STORY: Maine’s forests are our weapon against climate change
Maine’s forests are home to more than 17 million acres of forest, accounting for around 25 billion trees, trees that are able to absorb a countless amount of carbon and be key in our fight to regulate our climate and temperature. Aside from acres that are reserved for commercial use, producing raw materials for items such as toilet paper, “Maine forests are more than an endless wood supply. Ecological reserves, public lands and forever-wild areas are part of the mix. The ecological value is high: Western and northern Maine provides the last big block of undeveloped forest of its kind in the world and provides some of the best remaining habitat.”
8.GREEN TIP: Caring and helping tree/plant populations flourish can be immensely helpful in creating a more sustainable, green world. We encourage you to try your hand at planting if you’re able but you can always support your local conservationists who are working towards bringing more trees into the world as well as taking heed in respecting your area’s ecosystem.
For more green stories, check out our ‘SUSTAINABILITY NEWS & STORIES’ section in our Green Journal.
]]>Today, we will discuss women’s important contribution to fashion and how sustainable fashion cannot be so unless it prioritises people and equality as well as our planet.
What are the facts?
With this notion in mind, it’s evident that there are plenty of jobs within the industry that would help in continually building local economies. However, despite this abundance, there seems to be a lack of opportunities given to women.
In a general sense, there is the issue of the gender pay gap that, according to an article by The Wire, only worsened in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. `Furthermore, according to IWWAGE’s 2021 report on Women in the Indian Informal Economy, the amount of women working in informal employment is 4 times higher relative to men, which makes them vulnerable as they do not often get anything in return for their labour.
“Women’s labour, though critical to the survival of the industrial and Indian economy, has long been invisibilised in writings, undercounted in statistics and underpaid in salary registers. However, recent writings of feminist and labour historians show that women workers were central to the functioning of the colonial Indian economy; from farming to mining, sewing to sex work, the leather industry to the tea plantations.” - thewire.in
Historically, when it comes to textiles, women were often tasked in supporting male crafters, carrying out the initial stages of production to then hand over the work so that they could weave fibres into their final product. For example, colonial official and linguist George Grierson noted in 1879 how cotton was collected, dried and cleaned by the older women of the Madhubani region for 2 to 3 days within the process.
According to an IPS article, this delegation of highly labour-intensive tasks was due to the fact that women were cheaper labour - the reasoning being they were often an additional or secondary source of income within their families. Women are considered easier to control, are less likely to join trade unions and have been conditioned to take up repetitive, monotonous work. And so, due to this combination of social norms and expectations, very few women climb career ladders to become either more skilled or leaders in their field - “[in garment factories] women dominate the frontline workforce, it’s majorly men who hold supervisory roles in factories.”
And so, even today, there’s much work that needs to be done in order to close the gap and reach a point where women are appreciated for their contributions.
What does supporting women mean?
With all this in mind, it stands to reason that the enthusiastic inclusion of women can bring a lot of benefit to the industry. Since they have always been an integral part of various textiles processes, they have integral knowledge to share.
And so, by supporting women in craft…
How can you support women in craft?
Although there’s much that needs to change on an industry and policy level, there are also things we can all do as individuals to help and empower women in craft.
First off, there’s plenty you can do individually! You can:
Secondly, there are brands and NGOs that spotlight female craft that you can support. Here are a few you can check out now:
Your support and your voice are so important when it comes to the empowerment of women. Working together can bring great change so we hope you join us in supporting them in craft and in textiles.
]]>Today, we wanted to particularly look at dyeing, how it affects various ecosystems, as well as how it is a solution that could do a great amount of good if implemented more often by fashion brands.
What are the facts?
There are a range of dyes conventionally used within fashion. What most of them have in common though are that they are often synthetic or chemical dyes. Although, historically, dyes used to be derived from natural sources, to meet consumer demand that has only increased in the decades and centuries gone by, the fashion industry currently relies on methods that are faster and yield more vivid colour results.
As such, generally, fabrics are often dyed like so:
“Acrylic fibers are dyed with basic dyes, while nylon and protein fibers such as wool and silk are dyed with acid dyes, and polyester yarn is dyed with disperse dyes. Cotton is dyed with a range of dye types, including vat dyes, and modern synthetic reactive and direct dyes.” - wikipedia.org
You can learn more about each dye type here.
Why is this a problem?
According to a UNEP article, “Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally” due to weak regulation and unsustainable systems that are currently in place. Moreover, due to the toxic nature of the dyes, this jeopardises the health of the ecosystems that they are put in as well as the communities living around it.
For example, as stated by Fashion Revolution when regarding the impact of azoic dyes, another popular synthetic type used in textiles, “They are popular because they can be used at lower temperatures than Azo-free alternatives, and achieve more vivid depths of colour. But some are listed as carcinogens, and under certain conditions, the particles of these dyes can cleave (producing potentially dangerous substances known as aromatic amines). Upon contact with the skin, these can be harmful to humans and pollute water systems.”
According to a CNN article, Bangladesh, home to the world’s second largest garment manufacturing hub, experiences toxic wastewater being dumped into natural water bodies like rivers and streams regularly - “The discharge is often a cocktail of carcinogenic chemicals, dyes, salts and heavy metals that not only hurt the environment, but pollute essential drinking water sources.”
It’s safe to say that the direct impact of such a practice weighs heavily on our planet and people.
What is the solution?
Sustainable clothing encompasses many different methods, it’s all about considering each stage, and natural dyeing would play a huge part in changing the fashion landscape into something far more mindful. And so, since staying away from dyes completely is not a solution that would be easy to come to, reverting back to a more traditional, organic way of crafting may do a great deal of good. Like mentioned before, originally, garments were dyed using natural ingredients, ingredients that are both renewable and much safer for everyone.
Some advantages of natural dyes include:
Our method?
We can’t speak for how natural dyeing is conducted in every workshop that exists, however, we would like to use our own methods as an example of what the typical process can look like.
We work with an ethical herbal dye partner called BioDye who explain their method here in short:
Other ways in which they stay sustainable:
Natural dyeing is certainly something we will be implementing more and more in our craft as we grow. It’s a great way to directly lessen our own negative impact as well as provide better, safer clothing to you, our community.
We hope this gave you some insight and we hope you continue choosing consciously.
]]>Ranging from protecting wildlife to spreading awareness about climate issues, actively supporting these days can do so much good. Better awareness and education on sustainability topics especially can offset important debates within the public leading to real change in communities. That isn’t to say that we should only focus our efforts on these days, rather they are a starting point for many and a chance to encourage others to keep on doing good green work beyond it!
And so, as we embrace this new year, we hope you do so with purpose and motivation to spread the green word far and wide.
MARCH 3RD - World Wildlife Day
An important day that celebrates our world's flora and fauna as well as highlighting the need to protect endangered species. March 3rd was first proclaimed to be the day to celebrate World Wildlife Day on December 20th 2013 by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
In 2022, the theme of the day will be: Recovering key species for ecosystem restoration.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
Best stated by the UNGA, the day highlights “the intrinsic value of wildlife and its various contributions, including ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic, to sustainable development and human well-being.”
Alarmingly, since 1970, the population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have seen an average drop of 68% - and that’s due to a number of reasons ranging from poaching to a decline in liveable habitats (the decline being due to human activity). Our world is connected to nature in every way, as are we as humans, which is why the goal of a healthy planet and healthy communities is not possible without taking care of all the creatures that live alongside us.
MARCH 8TH - International Women’s Day
This global holiday celebrates the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements women have made throughout history as well as bring attention to issues that affect women, such as gender inequality in various spaces, reproductive rights and abuse against women. The earliest version of a Women’s Day existed as far back as 1909 (which was organised by the Socialist Party of America in New York City) and then was formally adopted by the UN as a mainstream holiday in 1977.
2022’s theme will be: Break the Bias.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
Being a female-led team at SUI and also being aware of the discrimination women face in the textiles industry, especially in India, it’s so important for us to empower the women we work alongside with as well as those all over the world fighting against inequality.
When we look specifically at the gender gap and work rights, according to a report that surveyed 106 countries, it will take around 108 years to reach gender parity - “The biggest gaps to close are in the economic and political empowerment dimensions, which will take 202 and 107 years to close, respectively.” Furthermore, only 6 countries give women equal legal work rights as men. With just these two facts, it’s evident change still needs to occur for women to be granted equal freedoms and rights in many, many ways.
MARCH 21ST - International Day of Forests
Established by the UNGA on November 28th 2012, this day highlights the importance of all types of forests and trees within our natural ecosystem. Countries around the world are encouraged to host events and encourage action locally, nationally and internationally through various campaigns such as tree planting activities.
2021’s theme was: Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being. 2022’s theme is yet to be confirmed.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
It’s estimated that, globally, approximately 25% of the human population rely on forests for their livelihood. Forests are also home to 80% of our world’s biodiversity, which is why it’s saddening that it’s possible that only 10% of our rainforests will remain in 2030 if we continue at this rate. Trees are integral in keeping the natural balance of our planet and so, it’s important we, at the very least, take a moment to shine a light on why their conservation is something we should all be striving towards.
MARCH 22ND - World Water Day
An annual UN observance day that highlights the importance of freshwater, primarily advocating for sustainable management of freshwater resources. The themes often focus on clean water, sanitation, and hygiene, seeking to provide these resources to as many in need around the world as possible.
2022’s theme will be: Groundwater: making the invisible visible
Why is it important to acknowledge?
Clean water itself is inaccessible to populations on every continent.
“Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical [water] scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation. Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers)... Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed.” - un.org
This shows that, for the health of so many communities around the world, accessing freshwater is a luxury when it should be a right, and should be something more of us need to be aware of and advocate for.
APRIL 22ND - Earth Day
This day focuses on garnering support for environmental protection. It was first held in 1970 where US Senator, Gaylord Nelson, hired a young activist, Denis Hayes, to host an environmental teach-in, which then grew into encouraging more than 20 million people nationwide to go out in protest for the sake of climate awareness. Now, coordinated events are organized all over the world- “On Earth Day 2020, over 100 million people around the world observed the 50th anniversary in what is being referred to as the largest online mass mobilization in history.”
2022’s theme will be: Invest in Our Planet.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
Days like this that spread awareness to the masses are so important to influence more around the world to make choices that impact our planet positively. When it comes to conscious consumerism, there’s been so much great improvement, for example, “72 percent of respondents in an Accenture survey said they're buying more environmentally friendly products than five years ago; 81 percent expect to buy more over the next five years.” When it comes to general public opinion on sustainability, a 2021 survey by the Peoples’ Climate Vote gathered information from 50 countries and found “Policies had wide-ranging support, with the most popular being conserving forests and land (54% public support), more solar, wind and renewable power (53%), adopting climate-friendly farming techniques (52%) and investing more in green businesses and jobs (50%).”
And so, awareness of climate issues grows day by day with the help of days like Earth Day. There’s still a lot of work to be done but if we all gather to support these events, we can definitely progress to a world that’s a little greener.
APRIL 24TH (TBC) - Fashion Revolution Week
Surrounding the annual remembrance of the Rana Plaza collapse and disaster, Fashion Revolution Week is an annual event that asks industry professionals, and all those interested in the effect of fashion on our world, to come together to share innovations and spread awareness of the effects of fashion on our planet.
The event first was established in 2014 as a single observance day but evolved into a week in 2016 and has been organised accordingly since.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
The fashion industry plays a big part in its effect on the planet. Especially due to industrial innovations and rising consumer demands, the industry grows with each passing year and is constantly creating, often to the detriment of the Earth. At present, it’s estimated fashion produces 8-10% of the world’s carbon emissions, 20% of its wastewater, and larger brands (fast fashion brands mostly) are known to often have unethical practices that underpay and overwork their crafters.
With the knowledge that the industry is also in the top 3 of most polluting industries, it’s definitely due for some reformation with more sustainable innovations needed come to the forefront, which is why FRW is important and can be a driving force in creating that change.
JUNE 5TH - World Environment Day
Established in 1974, it’s one of the most important and renowned observance days that inspires many around the world to spread awareness on climate issues. In short, “World Environment Day is a global platform for public outreach, with participation from over 143 countries annually. Each year, the program has provided a theme and forum for businesses, non government organisations, communities, governments and celebrities to advocate environmental causes.”
This year, the day will be hosted by Sweden for its 50th year, the theme being: Only One Earth.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
On the whole, this day focuses on a myriad of climate and sustainability topics. The intention ultimately is to highlight the importance of climate action is in a world that is already seeing the drastic effects of global warming - 2021 itself is one of the warmest years ever and extreme weather phenomena was experienced across the globe, 10 of which, in a study by the charity Christian Aid, caused more than $1.5bn of damage.Each year we acknowledge this day is one where we are further informed on the effect of climate change on our world and band together to do better.
JUNE 8TH - World Oceans Day
First conceptualised in 1992 by Canada’s International Center and the Ocean Institute of Canada, the day was actually officially recognised by the UN in 2008. The day focuses on the conservation and protection of the ocean, the sustainable management of its resources and looks to further the implementation of worldwide Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).
2022’s theme is yet to be confirmed.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
Like our forests, oceans are an incredibly powerful part of our global ecosystem, helping regulate climate, temperatures, providing resources as well as homes for many of our Earth’s species - approximately 15%, however, this number is far from accurate with much of the ocean unexplored and an estimated 91% of marine species still unclassified, meaning there are an unknown millions upon millions that call the ocean their home. With this in mind, their connection to our own livelihoods is intrinsic and should be one we take care of.
AUGUST 7TH - National Handloom Day
This day was declared by India’s Union Government in 2015 to honour handloom weavers and their contribution to India’s economy.
“August 7 was chosen as the National Handloom Day to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement which was launched on this day in 1905 in Calcutta Town Hall to protest against the partition of Bengal by the British Government. The movement had aimed at reviving domestic products and production processes.” - vikaspedia.in
Why is it important to acknowledge?
The handloom itself is a great sustainable alternative to the machine-powered loom conventionally used in the textiles industry. Being that it’s a by-hand method, there’s little to no carbon emissions created in the process.
Furthermore, the handloom sector in India is a prominent symbol of the nation’s cultural heritage and supports the livelihoods of many in the textiles industry, especially women who make up 70% of the workforce, providing work to many rural Indian communities - helping their economies flourish.
SEPTEMBER 17TH - World Cleanup Day / National Cleanup Day
A day that encourages clean up campaigns all over the world, the purpose is aimed at “combating the global solid waste problem, including the problem of marine debris.” It acts as a decentralised social program encouraged to be taken up by any who can all over the world to raise awareness and urge individuals, organisations, governments and so on, to find solutions to the problem of mismanaged waste.
Why is it important to acknowledge?
“The world generates 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with at least 33 percent of that—extremely conservatively—not managed in an environmentally safe manner. Worldwide, waste generated per person per day averages 0.74 kilogram but ranges widely, from 0.11 to 4.54 kilograms.” - worldbank.org
Human impact on our planet is no small thing. The tonnes and tonnes of waste we produce as a species is disproportionate to the amount of good we do for our planet which is why it’s so important that days like World Cleanup Day are met with enthusiasm to lessen the negative effects of our actions.
We hope this gives you newfound motivation to go out in the world to do some green good! Like we mentioned before, these days are not the only days we should be considering the various climate issues brought forth by each, rather their a starting point, a stepping stone, a way to spread the word effectively. So without further ado, we hope to see you join us in acknowledging and celebrating these days in 2022!
]]>With each chapter, we do our best to grow in our production processes, to make sure we become more sustainable with each season. This means encouraging our threadspeller team to keep learning, strengthening our partnerships with those who craft with us as well as forming new connections with other NGOs/artisan communities who share similar green objectives.
BLOOM is our most recent and greenest collection yet - and when we craft a new collection then that will be our greenest. Growth never stops and it’s what ensures that we are always putting our planet first. And so, today, we want to share how we have grown so far by depicting the journey of one of our latest silhouettes, our DAHLIA BLOOM MAXI DRESS, from inspiration to craft to final silhouette.
Inspired by memories & small joys
As with every collection of ours, we begin crafting a collection by gathering our inspiration. Oftentimes, these come from our travels and green escapes that our team had experienced - something that we truly connected with in our lives and surroundings. With the turbulent almost 2 years we have gone through, these experiences were not so possible and so, this year, we looked to what in our lives was bringing us comfort and small joys daily. These times had called for collective support and healing and we wanted to be able to do that with our designs in any way we could to then be able to share it with you, our community. And from this notion grew our recent chapters we launched throughout this year.
Our 8th one, that being our latest winter 2021 edit, takes a moment that many of us may be familiar with, the simple experience of walking through a garden as the season turns to autumn/winter. We wanted to focus on the joy of these moments like noticing particular blooms flourish as cooler temperatures set in, crisp mornings and watching leaves change colours as the days pass - then transform them into our latest conscious designs such as the one we are focusing on today, our Dahlia Bloom maxi dress.
So, why dahlias?
The flower takes centre stage on this silhouette, the motif covering every inch of our fabric. For many who grew up in Delhi, such as our green team, dahlias are a flower connected to the later seasons of the year. Since they are known to be tender perennials - meaning they can survive cooler climates if not too extreme - their varying hues can be spotted in many a Delhi home garden.
Our textile designer, Anukriti, who designed the print motif, shares some insight into why she was also drawn to them in her everyday life:
“[When we were first brainstorming this collection] The inspiration first came from Mahima's winter garden in Sainik Farms. Delhi is full of dahlias as soon as December arrives and they have always been around me since childhood around this time since my mom is a plant mother herself. She used to grow huge dahlia flowers in as many colours as possible and I remember having so many photographs of me as a kid surrounded by them in our home garden. Having so many memories with them and looking at them closely since childhood, the structure of this flower never seemed complex to me. We went through a few trials before we reached the perfect shape of the petals and full flower but while developing the print, the process for me was sentimental and magical.” - Anukriti
Craft & communities
The next step is to craft. At the core of everything we craft, is the intention to carry out each step sustainably. And we would not be able to do that without the help of ethical vendors that share the same green mindset. Here, we share each step and who helps us make the dress a reality.
1.From fibre to fabric.
The Dahlia Bloom maxi’s craft story begins with Khamir. In their own words, they are an NGO that “works to strengthen and promote the rich artisanal traditions of Kachchh district… Born in 2005 as a joint initiative of Kachchh Nav Nirman Abhiyan and the Nehru Foundation for Development, Khamir was formally registered under the Societies and Trust Acts in the same year. Today, it serves as a platform for the promotion of traditional handicrafts and allied cultural practices, the processes involved in their creation, and the preservation of culture, community and local environments.”
Through them, we obtain our Kala cotton fabric - they particularly focus on producing Kala cotton fibres (an initiative they began in 2007 in partnership with Satvik, an association of organic farmers in Kachchh) due to it being a native Indian cotton strain, one that we could utilise properly and sustainably if only we learned to farm and craft it properly. In the past, since the fibre has a short staple length, it had been difficult to produce fine quality textiles with it and so, it lacked use in mainstream markets.
“Today, the Kala Cotton Initiative encourages sustainable cotton textile production in harmony with local ecology. The project aims to create a value chain at multiple levels by working with marginalized communities and promoting locally grown species. To implement this initiative, Khamir and Satvik have created a supply chain between the Kala Cotton farmers, ginners, spinners and weavers to convert the raw cotton into hand woven products.” - khamir.org
Khamir is a shining example of powerful collaboration between local communities to effectively create sustainable systems - which is why we are so proud to have found a partnership with them and share how beautiful their fabric can be.
2.Creating our dahlia motif.
Once Khamir crafts our Kala cotton, we send it on to Bagru Textiles located in the Jaipur district, Bagru, Rajasthan. This artisan community has been a longstanding partner of ours since Summer 2020, helping us develop and create all our prints including our dahlia motif seen on this silhouette.
The artisan community itself has upheld it’s hand block printing craft for some centuries:
“For at least 400 years, Bagru has been home to the Chhipa — a clan whose name comes either from a Gujarati word meaning “to print” or from combining two Nepal Bhasa words: ‘chhi’ (“to dye”) and ‘pa’ (“to leave something to bask in sun”). The latter theory feels especially true as you walk through the vast communal drying fields that connect the Chhipa Mohalla —the village printers’ quarters…At least sixteen families regularly work as the master printers, dyers, block carvers, dhobiwalas (laundry people), and designers...” - thekindcraft.com
Their love for the art is something we have wholeheartedly wanted to share through our collections, hence why we even began our partnership, as well as because their methods rely mostly on crafting by hand rather than succumbing to mass producing machinery.
3.The final silhouette
And finally, our hand block printed fabric arrives at our workshop in Delhi into the hands of our threadspeller team. This team handles every single one of our pieces in one way or another, and are always the ones who finish each of our SUI garments.
Here, our small, dedicated team performs the following tasks:
-Tahir, our Master, cuts out the silhouette precisely to then be stitched.
-Either of our tailors, Hasan or Hanif, machine stitches the pattern pieces to form the full silhouette.
-Anita sews each button onto the dress by hand.
-It’s then handed back to Hasan/Hanif to iron and check over the stitching.
-Tahir then also checks over the silhouette by measuring it from top to bottom.
-Our production manager, Saif, performs a final quality check to evaluate if it’s ready to be delivered.
Conscious design & the green effect
We chose each of these steps to be part of our process because of one big reason, that being that the methods are conscious and allow us to avoid harming our environment through our production.
1.By choosing a fibre that is native to India, we are promoting resources that can be found right here in our home. From an environmental standpoint, carbon emissions and energy use is reduced due to less shipping and transportation needed to get fibres where they need to be to complete different stages. From a social/community standpoint, thomasnet.com, states “It stands to reason that if sourcing locally increases your bottom line, it would do the same for other suppliers and manufacturers in your area, which can be a big boon to your local economy and the people who live there. Happy, well-paid employees are more likely to invest in local businesses. Additionally, respected and well-off businesses are in a position to contribute to communities through fundraising, volunteering, benefits, and sponsored activities.” - a win for our planet and our people.
2.By favouring organic methods of production such as with Kala cotton, we are able to avoid the use of harsh chemicals that poison our atmosphere, create dangerous environments for workers, and are safer for our skin. Kala cotton is generally a hardy, durable fibre that can be grown in harsh conditions, it survives well just by being rainfed, and can even grow in drought prone areas like it’s native home, Kutch.
3.By designing and crafting using by-hand methods such as the handloom (to create our fabric) and hand block printing (to create our motif), we are able to avoid contributing to overall textiles greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions created from the heavy use of machinery in order to mass produce. As stated in a Common Objective article, “It is estimated that around 38 percent of yearly GHG emissions are generated during textile production – and today that overwhelmingly means either synthetics (62 percent of all fabric production, mainly polyester) or cotton (24 percent).” Moreover, we are able to promote local crafts which creates demand for them and contributes positively to helping our local economies and communities flourish.
4.By crafting using azo-free dyes used during our hand block printing stage, we avoid the use of azo dyes that are harmful to our environment, especially our marine ecosystems. As stated in this study by Rawat, Mishra & Sharma, “Azo dyes account for >70% of the global industrial demand (∼9 million tons). Owing to their genotoxic/carcinogenic potential, the annual disposal of ∼4,500,000 tons of dyes and/or degraded products is an environmental and socio-economic concern.”
5.By crafting minimal stock/on a made-to-order basis as well as upcycling within our production cycle, we are able to minimise our waste. In 2018 alone, approximately 17 million tons of textile waste ended up in landfills, when it comes to recycling, “The recycling rate for all textiles was 14.7 percent in 2018, with 2.5 million tons recycled. Within this figure, EPA estimated that the recycling rate for textiles in clothing and footwear was 13 percent based on information from the American Textile Recycling Service. The rate for items such as sheets and pillowcases was 15.8 percent in 2018.” - All in all, waste is a huge issue within our industry and one we do our best to not contribute to.
We hope this gave you insight into our own production as well as inform you of why it’s so important that we, as a fashion brand along with others, take strides to always be conscious within our practices. The fashion industry is in need of much reform and we want to make a difference by making sure we stay accountable and stick to our green promises so, we look forward to sharing more with you about our latest collection!
]]>Our SUI winter is here and, as always, a new collection means a new story.
Stories are a big part of us at SUI, stories carry memories, emotion and, most importantly, they carry a green heart. And so, whenever we begin to introduce new garments to you, we aim to connect them to things that are close to our hearts in the hope that they connect with you too. Creating these connections and associating them with clothing is how we learn to appreciate craft - we grow to understand that what we bring into our lives has greater value and meaning when we know its journey from start to finish.
Which brings us to our newest Chapter, our winter 2021 edit, that draws inspiration from something we can all relate to in some way, home gardens and the anticipation of winter and spring blooms.
This is our green story…
Our winter inspiration & story
The winter bloom in Delhi is one of the most memorable times for many. The weather cools down and gardens across the city begin to see colour all around them, flowers such as Dahlias, Lilies, Calendulas, and Pansies are all staples of this season.
This chapter, we take inspiration from these motifs, these colours and the entire idea of Bloom.
Nature thrives when it’s looked after, when it’s cared for and so it gives us beautiful trees, flowers and more. The same goes for us as human beings and the same goes for our clothing. The more we care for the things around us, the better we can hope for them to bloom, bloom in ways which work best for our future.
Blooming flowers themselves also carry a special message alongside them, that there are moments of joy that await us, they show us the beauty of starting fresh and growing gracefully. These sentiments are what our own clothes have always wanted to communicate with our wearers - that we all have the ability to build a conscious mindset through our everyday choices and that it’s never too late to do so.
The craft behind it all
With this collection we brought back familiar fabrics and vendors as well as some new ones - we always like to try out some fresh ideas with each collection, it’s how we ourselves bloom with every chapter, by experimenting with conscious design and techniques as we continuously work becoming greener each day.
SILHOUETTES
The essence of our silhouettes are that they are evergreen, comfortable, sustainable and inspired by the very heart of nature. By using techniques such as the handloom, hand block printing, plant-based dyeing, hand and machine embroidery, this season, we bring you silhouettes which bloom for you everyday.
Merging slow clothing with everyday silhouettes is one of our key goals - and we aim to carry that forward this season. You can browse a variety of pieces that range from casual/everyday to formal, from midi to maxi dresses, button up shirts to classic tees. Our aim is to always make our pieces accessible, and so, whether your personal style is relaxed or more fitted, there’s something for everyone.
FABRICS
A journey of a garment begins with it’s design and sensibilities - and one of the main aspects of its journey to make sure we create mindfully is the fabric we choose. This is because the making of this fabric and the process it goes through helps us decide the kind of impact we’d like to have.
This season, we bring our classics along with new silhouettes and handwoven designs including handspun and handwoven organic cotton, handwoven Kala cotton, handwoven silk, organic cotton knit, Tencel and hemp.
COLOURS
Inspired by the colours of nature, this season our main colour muses are purple and mustard - taken from the colours of some of our favourite winter and spring flowers such as Marigolds, Dahlias and Pansies.
These colours have been used in various ways through our collection, from our prints and plant-based solid colours to our custom handwoven fabrics and embroidered motifs. We wanted to accentuate soft, warm tones we often associate with winter and use them in dynamic ways throughout our designs. This way, we are able to bring a little joy to the season and play on the idea of blooming with our wardrobes.
MOTIFS
Every season, one of the main ways we tell stories is through our motifs. They are our ode to nature and our way of leaving nostalgic memories on our clothes - things our community can then also take back with them and treasure. To create each motif, we work with slow, sustainable methods - those ranging from hand block printing, hand embroidery and machine embroidery.
This season, we explored many different winter blooms including calendulas, salvias and pansies, but would like to focus on 3 particularly which we developed as embroidery motifs as well as prints.
1.Dahlias - Delhi is full of dahlias as soon as December arrives and so, holds a special place in the hearts of many who grew up seeing them bloom in winter. Our own textile designer, Anukriti, who designed each of these prints remembers her mother growing huge dahlia flowers in as many colours as possible. With this in mind, we knew the motif would resonate well for our winter edit.
2.Marigolds - An evergreen flower that many of our winter gardens feature, you can always spot their shades of yellow and red while passing by Delhi homes. The print inspiration itself comes from Diwali, India’s biggest festive time of the year where many houses and streets are decorated with their blooms, the fragrance of flowers all around. The sight of them always evokes joy, something this season always makes us feel and so we wanted to pass that feeling on through our pieces.
3.Lilies - Another evergreen flower that certainly blooms brightly around the winter period in various vibrant colours. Among its many meanings, the ones that we connected with the most, sentiments we hope you carry with you as you wear these pieces, was that of remembrance - that being appreciative of the journey and finding comfort in heartfelt memories of the season - as well as love and compassion - that which we offer to our loved ones, ourselves and, of course, our planet.
And more on how we commit to our green promise
SUI’s sustainability efforts have and will always be a work in progress. This is because we are constantly learning and evolving.
We began as a brand who had a goal to craft thoughtfully and hoped to change the notion behind sustainable clothing being boring, while that remains, we find ourselves evolving into a brand that hopes to inspire and encourage women to build conscious wardrobes by bringing in sustainably made clothing to their day to day.
This is why the story behind what we do and how we do it plays such a big part. To craft with a green heart has been a motto at SUI since the start and what this means is that every step we take along the way with every product we make has to be followed through consciously. This season, we offer you thoughtful wardrobe choices made by keeping the little things in mind - so that you can shop consciously with ease.
Here are some of those little things:
-Our overall process truly begins with initial designing where we go through various brainstorming sessions and meetings then onto crafting silhouettes - those that we think will las and are versatile.
-We then begin to think about the fabrics and craft we’d like to work with. The staples for us remain, that being handmade fabrics, handmade prints and hand embroideries. These crafts and techniques help us keep the energy we consume low as most of them use human hands to be created.
-Aside from embroideries which are all done by our in-house threadspeller team, we then consider who to collaborate with to deliver the fabrics and prints. We always aim to connect with artisan communities here in India as by doing so we are able to help enrich traditional craft and encourage others to choose handmade textiles. For Bloom, our handwoven organic cotton is provided by WomenWeave, our Kala cotton is provided by Khamir, and our prints are done by Bagru Textiles.
-For all other fabrics, we use sustainably sourced materials from vendors we share relationships with - organic cotton knits, Tencel and hemp. Each of these fabrics are the better alternatives to their conventional form and are processed using safer, more ethical practices.
-Our colours are always derived via a mix of azo-free and plant-based dyes - this is due to several reasons. Our prints tend to be azo-free because of colour limitations with plant-based colours, however, the process of hand printing makes sure that the water wastage is close to minimal.
-Our handmade fabrics are often made with azo-free dyed yarns as yarn dyeing has a lower negative environmental impact than conventional fabric dyeing methods used in industry.
A new collection is always an exciting time for us and we are so happy to have you all be a part of our journey as we keep taking strides forward. This is just the beginning of what we want to share with you this season about BLOOM. We look forward to sharing more about the finer steps in our craft as well as properly introducing our artisan partners we are crafting with this winter.
Stay tuned here and to our social platforms for lots more to come.
]]>Without further ado, here’s a round up of a few stories we hope will brighten up your day and encourage you to live a little greener.
Some slow fashion stories and news...
1.Over recent years, we have seen a variety of biomaterials and biofabrics come into the spotlight to be offered as sustainable alternatives to commonly used synthetic ones we have grown used to in our fast fashion. And now, after 3 years of experimentation by California’s MycoWorks, mushrooms or rather mycelium, the underground substance mushrooms sprout from(patented Fine Mycelium), is one of the newest materials to be developed as a vegan alternative to animal leather and is anticipated to be a key component of Hermes’ new handbag launching this winter!
An incredible feat and we hope for more innovations like this that use more sustainable sources so that we get closer to a greener world everyday.
Read more: The might of mushrooms: from fashion to skincare and supplements
2.As we all grow more aware of how rapid production of clothing is harmful to our environment, the changing mindset to buy secondhand or preloved has become more mainstream. This livemint article states just how much potential the resale market has:
“In July, Business of Fashion estimated the global resale market to be worth $130 billion. Thredup has predicted the resale sector to be double the size of fast fashion by 2030. Vestiaire Collective (10 million users), Depop (30 million users) and Vinted (45 million users) have won over consumers in Europe over the last decade, each garnering valuations of over $1 billion. Similarly, the US has been dominated by bigwigs like The RealReal and Poshmark.”
Within South Asia, these western models of reselling have not transferred over seamlessly, however, due to a strong culture of preserving and handing down heritage pieces within South Asian communities, the preloved market certainly has the potential to grow.
Read more: Why the future of fashion is preloved
3.With each year that passes more businesses, corporations, and NGOs all over the world are doing their part to tackle how unsustainable our current fashion industry is. In a small town in Italy called Prato, they have built their fortune by transforming old fabric scraps into new clothes, particularly knitwear and wool. Over 100 companies exist in this district, all involved in one aspect or another of the recycling process and they claim to currently produce around 15% of the world's recycled clothing.
Watch the full video here:
Some general sustainability stories and news...
1.Not long ago, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) was held in Glasgow from October 31st to November 12th 2021. The summit aimed to “bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.” The 4 main goals of the event were to: secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach; adapt to protect communities and natural habitats; mobilise climate finance; and encourage countries to work together to deliver.
Though there is still much progress to be made and could not be accomplished in just 2 short weeks, the summit did see many new pledges made on methane gas pollution, deforestation, and coal financing, to name just a few.
Read more: What the COP26 climate conference really accomplished
2.With COP26 spurring communities to make active change, India’s youth also seeks out better climate education to increase awareness and encourage positive action.
“On the formal education front, India has had an active policy for environment education since the 2003 Supreme Court directive set out a possible way forward; with the goal being to educate each young Indian about the environment, learn about sustainability and the real risks emerging from climate change. There is an active argument in favour of including climate change education (CCE) in schools as it acts as a positive impetus for India’s efforts to meet its sustainable development goal targets (SDGs), a key priority at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference held earlier this November.”
Read more here: Catch them young: School climate education key for sustainable development
3.It’s important that we all think about sustainability in many aspects especially when it comes to your day-to-day impact, and food, of course, plays a very big part. In this TED-Ed video, it “explores the innovative ways countries are revolutionising farming to ensure we can feed humanity in a way that works with the environment.”
Watch the full video here:
Some nature stories and news...
1.The North Atlantic fishing nations have pledged to ban fishing the world’s fastest shark, the endangered shortfin mako. This comes as a critical breakthrough to help protect the species as they have been prized for their meat and fins as well as in sportfishing.
“At the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) this week, countries agreed “to end overfishing immediately and to gradually achieve biomass levels sufficient to support maximum sustainable yield by 2070” for the mako shark.”
Read more here: Atlantic fishing nations agree to ban catches of mako, world’s fastest sharks
2.India’s UNESCO heritage-listed Western Ghats mountain range faces deforestation and the devastating effects of global warming but, at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, a group of 27 women act as guardians of the rare ferns, tree-hugging mosses and thousands of other plants that may otherwise be lost forever.
“We are trying to salvage what is possible. It is like a refugee camp,” said Suprabha Seshan, one of the curators at the reserve. It is also like a hospital. “The intensive care unit is in the pots and when you take them out that’s like the general ward where they get other forms of primary healthcare,” Seshan added.
Read more here: The women guarding India’s rainforest ‘refugees’
3.Moreangels Mbizah discusses how communities can help in protecting wildlife while telling her own story of becoming a conservationist. Her story particularly expresses how important it is to be aware of nature around you and encourage others to educate themselves on their surroundings. By just being aware, we would all understand better how to be more conscious of the creatures who live next door to us.
Watch the full video here:
These stories are certainly inspiring and we hope it has helped you grow your own knowledge of the world of sustainability.
Stay tuned with us next week where we will be back to share an all new craft/slow fashion story!
]]>It can be hard to tell where to really start making changes when you first begin your green journey. Today, we hope to make those first steps a little easier by sharing our best tips on how your closet can be more sustainable - and many of these you can do right now by just going through the closet you already have!
To begin, let’s define what a conscious closet means.
A conscious closet is one that is composed of pieces that benefit our environment and/or communities in some way, whether that’s due to how it is made or how it is utilised.
Like Elizabeth L. Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, has stated “Clothes could have more meaning and longevity if we think less about owning the latest or cheapest thing and develop more of a relationship with the things we wear.” - essentially, if we all take the time to understand how our clothes are made and how they affect the world around us, we can more effectively make choices that do more good than harm.
Here are some key ways to create a conscious closet that helps our planet become greener.
Which is why, when you’re putting together an outfit, we urge you to really make use of pieces you have already attained. Sort through older garments that you may have forgotten and pair them with newer ones, you may find you have more to work with than you initially thought.
Jainee here is a great example of someone who does just that! Here, she wears our Sunny Palms tube top to complete her saree look - she got creative, paired ‘unlikely’ garments together and achieved a unique and elegant look.
Wise word to live by: “Think of yourself as a curator, rather than a consumer.” – Christine Koh, author, co-host of Edit Your Life podcast.
By investing in good quality basics, you are also ensuring that your pieces live a long life and accompany you through every season, every year. A basic tee works wonders in the summer to keep you cool, it also can be paired with cozier vests as autumn comes along and then can be easily layered with jackets and scarves in much colder months.
Our founder, Mahima, gives you a little demonstration of a few SUI basics she loves to style.
Increasing the longevity of items you already have is incredibly important due to how much clothing and textiles is wasted each year. In the US alone, approximately 85% of all textiles (around 13 million tonnes) were reportedly thrown away in 2017 - meaning they were either dumped in landfills or burned. Globally, that number comes up to about 92 million tonnes.
When we waste clothing like this, it affects our environment in a huge way. Landfills full of textile waste will poison animal habitats as the dyes or plastic fibres can leech toxins into the earth or water bodies. It could also be ingested by various species who grow ill or die because of it. By burning this waste, carbon emissions increase and contribute to global warming. And so, we definitely recommend you think twice before completely discarding your pieces.
If you are a lover of slow fashion or secondhand clothing, you may have come across terms like upcycling, refashion or thrift flip, all of which describe a kind of do-it-yourself crafty approach to reimagining clothing you already have. This encapsulates things like herbal dyeing, hand embroidery, patchwork and just simply restitching items to give them a whole new, fresh look.
Here’s a video to give you a little inspiration.
More wise words to live by: “Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” – Anne Lappé, author, educator, and sustainable food advocate.
By only choosing to invest in brands who you have found to be truly earnest in their sustainable values, you are choosing more conscious practices to become a norm, you are choosing to give workers fair recognition and the right to an ethical standard within their workplace, you are choosing a world that understands how each action makes an impact.
We hope this helps you in your green journey and gets you to reconsider your relationship with your current closet. Here’s a final video that also encapsulates a lot of these tips that you can go back to:
All these little steps may seem small but they can help change our world if we all do our best to dedicate ourselves to any of these conscious acts each day.
]]>Sui’s tryst with handlooms began in 2018 and ever since, we most often find ourselves in discussions with our community asking 2 key questions:
-How do we create more awareness around the versatility and uniqueness of handloom fabrics for young & old customers?
-How do we create more access for handloom fabrics?
In the search for answers and to hear from those who work closely with handloom fabrics - today, we share some conversations we had with a few from our conscious community - those who support handcrafted textiles and engage with them, and those who directly work with craft communities. While we chat with them, we explore how handcrafted textiles benefit us all, especially how the handloom can cater to contemporary audiences. Modernising the handloom doesn’t necessarily mean pushing it to adapt to modern times, but rather finding a way to merge the traditions of handloom, the beauty and impact of the creation with the trends and the identity of the industry today.
Through doing this, it would connect clothing with more conscious values, something that’s highlighted as being intrinsically important within these chats we are be sharing with you.
A FEW FACTS ON HANDLOOM FABRICS BEFORE WE BEGIN:
-As of 2021, handlooms are the second largest industry in India - coupled with our clothing industry.
-Handlooms give access to jobs, encourage community building and women empowerment.
-They’re better for the climate due to their low carbon footprint.
-The fabric is one of a kind and so special to own.
-They help keep traditions alive.
-Even though we see a revival in the use of handlooms, we have a long way to go and one of the key aspects which will help boost this industry further is by educating others on these points.
A conversation with Radhika, co-founder of Raaha
To begin, we speak with Radhika Gupta, who shares her knowledge and experience working with various artisan communities.
SUI: What is Raaha and what do they do - aims and mission?
RADHIKA: We are a women-led company powering growth in the artisan economy by creating access to handmade digitally for today’s conscious global consumers. We work together with social enterprises and artisan communities to bring beautiful, environmentally positive gifts and immersive cultural experiences to you.
We are two Indian women [Radhika & Amrita] who want to reimagine a future by inspiring you to make conscious choices. A shared passion for equity, climate action, sustainable development together with our experience in fashion, travel, education and working with artisans got us here. After six months of consulting with artisan-led social enterprises and curating digital learning experiences, a conversation about receiving wasteful corporate gifts that lack intent got us thinking. And we knew high-quality handmade products were the answer.
We are committed to working alongside with social entrepreneurs in a new world for handmade that brings consumers and makers together with an integrated approach.
SUI: Why should we look to modernizing the handloom per se, as in bringing more exposure to the art while teaching communities to evolve?
RADHIKA: Modernizing handloom = creating more access. Even though 95% of global handlooms are supplied by India, the Handloom industry at large remains unexplored because of a notion that the product it delivers is restrictive, this results in many fashion brands not exploring this as an alternative option for sustainable raw materials for clothing. Breaking this misconception and showing how a few changes and innovation can make handlooms a great sustainable alternative for the garment industry is critical to undo the years of low or no business and global exposure and inclusiveness the sector has faced.
SUI: What challenges do you and other organisations like yours face in trying to revitalise the handloom and its communities?
RADHIKA: I think the biggest challenge is competition from machine made replicas that are being sold by retail giants labelled as ‘handmade’ or ‘artisan made’. Everyone wants to cash in on the trends and retain consumers by offering them cheaper, more affordable alternatives to meet their demands creating an unending cycle of greenwashing. There is only one outcome to this- the artisans suffer! Instead if the amazon karigars of the world can come together and use their tools, influence, reach, financial and human resources to equip and mobilize artisan clusters, we can genuinely create change from the ground up.
SUI: What would be your advice to any business trying to incorporate craft into their value chain, how should they approach the task?
RADHIKA: YOU NEED TO WORK AS A TEAM!
The biggest lesson we have learnt is that artisans are not manufacturers, they are skilled craftspeople and we need to accept and include that in our value chains. We need them because what they can offer we don’t. Building trust and a mutually respectful relationship with artisans is key. Incorporating craft is easy, the difficult task is maintaining transparency for consumers about who made the products, how the products were made, where the artisans are based, how much they get paid etc.
Another aspect of working with crafts is to consistently remind ourselves about the slow nature of production of handmade products. We have gotten used to an instant world with next day deliveries and many small businesses are expected to offer this kind of service but setting this tone and expectation for yourself when you are planning to work with artisans is critical. Plan ahead, start sooner than you would, be patient and use your brand to create this mindset shift. :)
SUI: What tips/advice would you give to anyone on how to properly support craft communities?
RADHIKA: Credit where it’s due! The biggest gap that has existed between consumers, businesses and craft communities is that there is no credit given to the makers! Start your support by talking about their expertise, their processes and this supports in sustaining their cultural knowledge through exposure.
I do understand that businesses want to protect their resources, but we also need to be mindful of the fact that we need to bring in more business. If everyone kept their craft communities a secret, how would they grow? Some other actions we can take to support are :
SUI: What do you think are the key factors in our road ahead to helping the handloom industry in India thrive?
RADHIKA:
- Access to open finance
- Access to digital tools and knowledge
- Institutional and policy support
- Fashion industry’s genuine involvement, beyond marketing projects
- International Advocacy platforms talking about Indian Handlooms
- Craft led businesses using their influence to create awareness and convert consumers into advocates
- A streamlined supply chain
- Skilled leadership for innovation and design
A conversation with Vinita, a slow fashion advocate
Next, we spoke with slow fashion advocate, stylist, consultant and writer, Vinita Makhija.
SUI: What experience first inspired you to take more of an interest and see the potential in handcrafted textiles?
VINITA: There are so many stories.
On one of my very first field visits with FabIndia to Lucknow- I had this epiphany that Indian/couture fashion and brands do not get made in factories and karkhanas as much as they do get made in villages/in the homes of weavers and artisans. That is a legacy we continue to follow.
I went to the houses of embroiders in the village and saw the couture-level of threadwork being achieved in such humble surroundings. Sadly, they never wear what they ever make.
My stay at the Ahilya Fort and meeting with Prince Richard Holkar- tracing the history of Maheshwaris; seeing the Rehwa workshop. The looms are kept and worked where the daily prayers use to happen during Ahilyabai Holkar's time. These have been defining moments of my journey learning about and covering Indian textiles.
Developing a sudden hypersensitivity to certain fabrics- especially polyester, after wearing it throughout all of my teens/20s in them, it was a strange call to action and curiosity.
Noticing and then looking further into why certain brands and designers like Pero, Indigene, Swati Kalsi would send their pieces for shoots in wrapped in mul- no plastic sheets; there would be specific instructions on how to iron and store them, and certainly on how to return them. These specific instances have helped me look further into handlooms and brands that work them.
SUI: Have you found that handcrafted textiles have found a resurgence in India’s fashion world and what other steps should we be taking to further its enrichment - on an industry and/or individual level?
VINITA: I think it's important to recognize that handloom falls under the bracket of slow fashion. While there is a greater need for transparency, credit, fair wages; it is important to continue these practices in a slow manner. We don't need to "increase" production.
I think there is a resurgence in conversations about sustainability and conscious living (I think I should point out that these are a lot of conversations without much quantifiable action right now), and textiles are simply one of the facets. To be honest, I am afraid it is a bit in-trend right now to discuss Indigenous Indian textiles- and you know what happens with trends…
SUI: What particular form of textile handicraft are you most fascinated with and why?
VINITA: Actually, I am most interested in learning about mindful, plant-based fabrics right now- made with mushrooms, hemp, natural fibers etc in terms of true sustainability. The ones that require minimal water and create minuscule wastage. I hope we can start calling that future of fashion instead of the spacesuit/alien inspired imagery. I am interested in handlooms as a way to sustain our history, traditions, culture, legacy and true talent. And also because handloom never broke me out in hives. I enjoy the feel of handloom on my skin.
SUI: How can the handloom benefit the fashion industry?
VINITA: Well, designs require base fabrics, and I hope brands will consider supporting clusters/villages/weavers over several seasons and not as a PR pitch to truly introduce, both, the wearers to true 'Indian fashion' and uplift weaving families. I also hope designers, the government, and organisations with power will spend money on weaving families in terms of education, introducing them to creative design thinking that help them go beyond what they first started with, and offering grants to new generation of weavers to convince the sons and daughters to continue their family (and India's) traditions. Fashion industry excels at creating luxurious experiences, I hope they will bring handloom the much needed luxury tag.
SUI: Why is it important that the fashion industry makes an effort to modernise the handloom?
VINITA: Is it? I don't think fashion ALONE needs to intervene to make handloom modern per se. What do we mean by modernity? Why does everything have to be modern? What is our collective obsession with being cool, relevant, and with the times? It bores me.
However, if you mean in terms of silhouettes of finished pieces- that is on designers- what else can they offer us with handloom fabrics besides angrakha inspired empire waists and wrap/kurta-dresses? Handlooms don't always have fluidity- how can they make this exciting for the buyers? I am looking for that freshness.
SUI: How can we as individuals help support handcrafted textiles and the handloom?
VINITA: I like the current route some stylists, influencers/brands are taking. I like that they describe the looks via textiles and not just colour or silhouettes. That they are open about where they are sourcing textiles from, and openly crediting the artisans. I love seeing BTS. Information (and sharing as in the case of Instagram) is power. Handloom is a unique POV- I can't say it always translates well to 'cocktail dresses' or 'going out tops'- but the stylist in me loves a good challenge.
I hope stylists, young (and old) brands, tastemakers will introduce a new visual language. We don't need to be 'cool' with handloom. We just need it to be a normal option. It's not a case of VS, your wardrobe can have Zara and Indian textiles.
I made a list of where to buy directly from weavers on Instagram a while ago- that post has over 10k saves- this gives me hope that people are truly looking to make wiser choices. India is unique- in that, no other country in the world has as much autonomy over its pret and couture wear. We can stitch our own clothes with alarming ease- can we utilise this talent and access? Let's bring back buying and gifting handloom textiles. My friends no longer get sweets from my travels, they are all gifted textiles with detailed instructions on how to care for them (+ free unsolicited styling advice)
A conversation with Nivedita, co-founder of Karghewale
And finally, last but certainly not least, we speak with Nivedita Rai who directly works with artisan communities to aid in bringing their craft to the mainstream market and who we have had the pleasure of working with for a few years now.
SUI: What is Karghewale and why was it founded - its aims and intentions?
NIVEDITA: I realised after working in the craft sector for a long time that what had happened within the sector, even with reforms and initiatives put forth by the government and other NGOs, is that artisans were pushed towards the rear-end and, in the process, they lost their agency. Karghewale’s intent is to reinstate that agency by providing and enabling equal systems so that they can become entrepreneurs in their own right and won’t have to depend on other forces within their industry. We are aiming to avoid negating individual people within the value chain, what we are saying is that they don’t need to be reduced to the status of wage labourers, they can do much more if given the opportunity.
The problem in our present ecosystem is that there’s no ample opportunities like this available for the craftspeople because the previous systems have enabled the reduction of their agency, we are essentially trying to work against this, this is what Karghewale stands for. We define ourselves as an incubator for artisan-led enterprises so that they can find their own way in the world. Although there are many initiatives that exist, this is how we stand out from the rest.
SUI: For anyone who may not be familiar, explain what craft clusters/communities are within India and what state are these clusters in at the moment?
NIVEDITA: If you go back to earlier days, in every nook and corner of India, handwoven fabrics were a large part of the culture and there were lots of different techniques people used to weave, which was also dependent on the availability of yarns there, and also the weather conditions. For example, West Bengal had Jamdani fabric and Banarasi fabric was prevalent in Vanarasi. And everything was only handwoven, from the exquisite textiles to the normal cotton that was made for the common man.
Cut to present day to what we call clusters, which are the remnants of this prevalent weaving culture that existed in previous decades. Some areas have still retained popularity for their handwoven textiles while others have completely lost these crafts depending on various external factors unique to each area. Clusters are where handweaving traditions are still going on and they are quite famous, for example Kanjivaram is known for and specialises in silk and jacquard weaving techniques, so when identifying clusters, it’s a combination of the actual yarns and the techniques they use - so, like I mentioned, the jacquard and silk weaves are seen in Tamil Nadu but are also done similarly in Banaras and the distinction between the sarees will be seen within the intricate motifs.
Within these clusters, people will specialise in certain techniques using a certain kind of yarn. In India, the story is that the context is highly localised, there’s no exchange of yarns being done between the clusters which is something we’re trying to change through our Karghewale model to get young entrepreneurs to work together and share information that would hopefully help them generate new ideas for products.
The state of clusters today is that most have been wiped out and now, you can classify them into two kinds: the ones that are still famous and the others that are not and are dwindling slowly - some weavers for them do still exist but they often take up another vocation. The latter is who we choose to work with, the undersubscribed, as we call them, clusters - they’re not perceived as opulent, they’re not famous, most people don’t know about them or visit them. We will go identify these clusters and try to understand and revive the techniques. For example, right now, we’re working in the Nadia district in West Bengal with an undersubscribed cluster that operates near Phulia, an well-known cluster. The cluster, like many, hardly find work and make meagre wages but we hope to help revive it.
SUI: Can you give us a brief overview of the value chain for the Jamdani & Kala cotton fabric SUI has worked with?
NIVEDITA: Kala cotton, is an indigenous cotton native to Gujarat, it’s a rain-fed crop meaning it doesn’t require modern irrigation, it is organic and the growth of it is not dependent on fertilisers, pesticides or insecticides - so, in many ways, it’s a sustainable fibre. Moreover, due to Gujarat’s climate being arid, the texture of the fibre is not that smooth, it has a slight roughness to it. The crop is grown only in Gujarat, plucked by farmers, spun and woven there ensuring that the value chain mainly remains in that region, meaning that logistically, we’re able to keep our carbon footprint quite low in the process - it’s probably one of the most sustainable fibres I have come across.
When it comes to the Jamdani fabric, it’s widely available in Bengal where the climate is very humid so it’s possible to use a very fine yarn in it’s creation - we use a 92 count cotton yarn for the warp and weft, a highly translucent weave. And what makes it even more unique is we use an extra weft that merges well with the base weft and is implemented using a one-by-one insertion, it’s highly labour intensive work if you look at the fabric. In terms of the fibres, there are a lot of spinners and retailers of yarn who are near the clusters in Bengal and we only source our cotton yarns from there, they source the fibres from locations in south India such as Maharashtra. Once we buy them from the spinners and retailers, the Jamdani fabric is woven by female artisans in Shantipur.
SUI: Why is it important that we revitalize craft methods like the handloom and specific weaves like Jamdani?
NIVEDITA: For us, it’s the whole basis of everything we do. We want to revitalise crafts for several reasons.
One is definitely because it’s sustainable and environmentally friendly and we should as a whole, as a planet, we should move towards sustainability because of climate change and immense pollution - there’s no Planet B right, so we have to move towards this concept of sustainability within every sector especially the textiles sector which is highly polluting.
Secondly, there’s a lot of heritage and history in our craft that should be carried on otherwise it will be forgotten and lost.
Thirdly, and most importantly for us at Karghewale, it’s about enriching the livelihoods of so many in the rural areas of India. And since we have such a huge population in India, we need a sector that is labour intensive like how our sector is - a lot of people in villages can be provided employment where they already are rather than having to migrate, which would help solve that issue that we have in our country too. So, this means it would help solve quite a few problems within our society, especially for women - it can be a much better source of employment where instead of working in the fields where they often compromise their health, they can weave and spin and earn a decent income in the comfort of their own homes. By choosing the handloom, we are able to support so many livelihoods due to how labour intensive it is as it often involves 14 to 16 people in the whole chain of the fabric weaving. In this way, it certainly promotes rural life.
The last thing is that It’s a conscious choice that if people make then the whole chain becomes more fruitful, more sustainable, more mindful. It’s a better choice for our planet and nature.
And now, when it comes to techniques like Jamdani, these are very special crafts that are full of indigenous knowledge which we have already lost so much of and so, what remains, we should definitely try to conserve. And the world will turn towards India because of this unique selling point. Only a few countries including Bangladesh, Vietnam and Laos, are among the last that still work with handlooms where most others use power looms and so our craft has become more and more niche.
SUI: What are the challenges businesses face while working with artisans? And how can nonprofits and artisan organizations fix that?
NIVEDITA: A lot of the challenges we have faced have been due to the unprofessionalism and lack of regulation that’s prevalent within the handwoven sector. And because of that, it is something we are trying to change through our own Karghewale model. This is a sector that’s highly unpredictable because of the craft, the handweaving especially causes delays in orders often, so we are trying to bring in a more professional mindset but it also requires patience and understanding from clients - by working together we can mitigate this challenge.
And in this way, it’s also about educating each other. Artisans are creators meaning there are particular creative processes that take time and may not match the rhythm of business but we can definitely find a way to meet in the middle. We are especially trying to teach the young generation of weavers and entrepreneurs a more professional mindset to be adaptable, to be flexible, to think out of the box. We’re teaching them skills like how to create a bill, how to claim taxes, all these little things take up a whole of our curriculum at Karghewale.
A lot of issues businesses face with the sector is, first, due to the legal regulations because most artisans are small, single business people who do not have GST or do not have legal compliances so companies lose out on working with them. Secondly, deadlines are also an issue. Many artisans are not aware of how these businesses work so don’t stick to deadlines due to various factors. Businesses also don’t know how these artisans work which creates a gap between them that we are trying to bridge. The third main issue is to do with the quality of the product. The quality parameters for artisans and businesses are starkly different. Handwoven crafts can have deviations to the initial design which businesses need to understand happens, whereas weavers need to understand that businesses will not want a lot of deviation from what they had initially ordered. Moreover, just generally, timelines are always a challenge. In the world of fast fashion, designs are churned out every 2 months or so and that’s just not possible or sustainable in the world of slow fashion.
These are the main issues but it’s something we can all work together to solve. Closing those gaps has to be an effort on both sides.
SUI: Can we move beyond the west’s fixation with certifications? Our understanding of it is that they are expensive and most weavers can’t afford them which means they lose business and work to those who can.
NIVEDITA: Regarding certifications, it is entirely true that single weavers definitely can’t afford certifications. It’s a process that they are not even aware of how they can go about it. Most haven’t even ventured out of their villages, they would have no idea where to start. And this is something we need to brainstorm to figure out what alternative we can do instead.
What could happen is that organisations like ours could instead acquire a certification that would be extended to whoever we work with - we would essentially take care of it on behalf of the weavers. Another way is to invite people to see the processes themselves to understand it and build trust with those who visit. Building trust would be key and, yes, It would be a slow, time intensive process but it would be a great way to bypass certifications.
SUI: How can intermediary organisations like Karghewale create stronger processes for sampling in a virtual world?
NIVEDITA: Karghewale and organizations like Karghewale definitely can do a lot when it comes to bridging the gap and ensuring that we have smoother processes for enabling the ease of doing business with artisans. Even when it comes to sampling, what we're trying to do is we're trying to talk to artisans so that they're more flexible in carrying out their tasks, they’ll be flexible when it comes to using different yarns and techniques and being adaptable to the needs of the business and consumers. We're also trying to have smaller looms installed with the artisans so that it's easier for them to make samples quickly and give it to the client so that they can approve it. These are the small measures that we're taking. There’s a long way to go, but I'm hopeful that if Karghewale becomes a big enterprise and gets to work with more and more viewers in the near future, we can change others’ mindsets.
SUI: What do you see as the opportunities for the industry?
NIVEDITA: We definitely see many opportunities and that’s why we’re in this sector. One is a point I brought up earlier, that is the value handwoven products have in the world and the future potential India has as a country when it comes to being able to provide unique handwoven products. Regarding our environment, carbon footprint, the conservation of nature, handwoven textiles have a huge potential in being a better alternative to incredibly polluting fabrics that are used commonly in fast fashion. There’s the capacity handwoven textiles have in supporting rural livelihoods, those in villages, as well as decreasing migration which would have a big impact due to how it would reduce the imbalance of populations around the country.
I see a huge potential in this collaboration, I see merit in partnerships between those in rural areas and businesses. So, to end, I wanted to mention a quote by Dr. Verghese Kurien that I think sums up these thoughts well, "India's place in the sun would come from the partnership between wisdom of its rural peopleand skill of its professionals."
Handwoven crafts have such incredible potential to help benefit small communities as well as our planet and we hope the insight from these women puts into perspective just how that is. A big thank you to Radhika, Vinita and Nivedita for taking the time to answer our questions and share their knowledge.
And here’s how you can help support this wonderful industry:
- Be curious about where your clothes come from.
- If you haven’t already, introduce handloom garments to your wardrobe. Start with a few staple items like like our Endless Summer scarf or unisex shirt.
- If you’re a buyer of handloom, spread the love over to friends & family, be sure to share a little bit about where you bought your handloom pieces.
- While buying pieces for your home, look out for communities within your area or within India which create similar products - invest in those pieces to add uniqueness to your homes.
- Most importantly, educate yourself about fabrics - the more you know, the better quality fabrics you introduce into your wardrobe and the safer they are for your skin.
And with that, until next time green heart-ers!
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