Gargi Gupta tracks a few designers who are breaking out of the mould and promoting organic fashion
Joyjit Talukdar is a fashion designer with an ecological conscience. His label, Ela, is entirely comprised of garments made of organic cotton — cotton that is grown without any chemical fertiliser or pesticide. At his booth at the Will Lifestyle India Fashion Week A/W 2011 (WIFW), which concluded in the capital last Sunday, he showcased a line of dresses, tops, bottoms and jackets — all of them in shades of bleached white, beige and browns. “That’s because no chemical dyes have been used, only vegetable ones, and there are limitations on colours. For instance, tea was used in this one,” he says, pointing to a simple shift dress with asymmetrical hemline subtly embellished with pintucks.
Talukdar also uses alternative materials such as milk jersey in his garments which retail at a few boutiques such as Bombay Electric, The Verandah (Bangalore), Anonym (Hyderabad),. “It’s fabric made of the fibre extracted after the milk is dried. People look surprised but it’s actually a technique that was developed by the Germans during World War I. It’s soft and keeps the body cool in summer,” says Talukdar, a graduate of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Kolkata. His collection, titled “Bread and Dreams”, also uses a fabric made of bamboo, soybean and pineapple.
Talukdar, who worked for eight years at a large Delhi-based apparel unit before striking out last year with his own label, says designing is the easy part of it — the difficult part is getting his supply chain in order. “It’s been a real headache and I have been working hard at it for the past one year. That’s also the reason I am not showing on the ramp — vendors are still a problem and if a buyer puts in an order, I won’t be able to meet it.”
That problem was also what discouraged Niharika Sharma, who displayed her collection at the WIFW 2011 for the first time. “It was so hard to find a supplier when I did a line of organic garments two years ago. The only reliable one I found was HP Singh in Nehru Place [Delhi]. Besides, that collection did not do as well as my other lines, and as an entrepreneur starting out, I couldn’t afford to continue to work with organic,” says Sharma, adding that she hopes to work with organic again, when she does better.
Sourcing was a problem too with Shari Keller of the label Mehera Shaw which specialises in eco-friendly clothing and supplies to various stores in the West, including its two own stores in North Carolina and Jaipur. “Organic is available in India, but we must form long-term relationships with vendors to be able to trust their product,” she says.
Such problems notwithstanding, a number of designers have started to work with organic fibres. Senior designers Hemant Sagar and Lecoanet Didier unveiled a collection called “Green” last year which used organic cottons and natural dyes. They have since launched LH Cares, a new line of ayurvedic clothing, made entirely of organic cotton and permeated with special herbs and oils designed to restore balance and boost the immune system. But it’s probably Anita Dongre who was the first to do organic fashion in a systematic way with her line, Grassroots. Launched in 1998, the collection uses Fair Trade organic cotton, natural dyes and traditional Indian embroidery — done by women in craft clusters.
And it’s not just cotton — Bangalore-based Deepika Govind does an organic line in handwoven Eri silk using organic dyes such as indigo and alizarin (which gives a colour from dark muave to pale pink). However, there is not much of a market in India for organic garments, says Govind, even though the price difference between the two is not all that much. “The majority don’t understand and don’t care. For instance, we have a block against colours fading. I have to explain again and again that organic dyes are like skin — if it is exposed to the sun, the colour will change.”
Nevertheless, Govind agrees that things are slowly changing. It’s largely on the back of a few boutiques such as Bombay Electric in Mumbai, The Verandah in Bangalore and Studio Anonym in Hyderabad, which have been promoting organic fashion at their stores, says Talukdar. “Organic fashion is a fast growing big trend in the West and it is only a matter of time before it catches up in India,” says Anonym’s Vinita Passary.