Garments with medicinal values unveiled

Imagine a garment that will also act as a medicine.Arun Baid's Aura Herbal Wear has launched herbal garments that do just that.

The Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-Ahmedabad has extended support to Arun Baid for his "novel method of dyeing textile articles from medicinally rich herbs."

Explaining its process of making herbal garments, Baid said, "We dye 100 per cent natural fabrics by immersing them in the herbs such as myraballam (harade), catechu (kaththa), pomegranate rind (anar chal), madder (majeeth), castor oil (arandi tel). Even the bleaching done on the fabrics is naturally done with sunlight and laying the fabric on grass."

Aura Herbal Wear posted sales of Rs 35 lakh in the past fiscal and expects sales of around Rs 60 lakh this year.

Explaining further Baid said, "All the garments are made of natural fibres such as cotton, linen, silk and wool woven on handloom. Herbal wear has medicinal properties. It is anti-allergic, anti-microbial and has antiseptic properties and wearing such garments facilitates transpiration or breathing from the skin. The fabric is also eco-friendly as the waste from such herbal dyeing can be converted into manure."

On promotion of pollution free environment, Baid said, "Whenever one can buy herbal wear, the person is automatically promoting vegetation as herbs get used and have to be re-grown."

In herbal dyeing, colours are derived directly from different herbs, flowers, stems and roots. Some the herbs used are turmeric, pomegranate, tulsi, bay leaves and sandalwood, Baid added.

When asked about any help from government, Baid said, "According to our study, the herbal textile has a good export market and we need initial capital investment from government to promote the herbal textile across the world." At present, they export the herbal textile in Germany, United Kingdom and United State of America.

"In fact, Maneka Gandhi's clothes are supplied from our showroom and outlets," claimed Baid.