DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT
WORKING WITH ARTISANS
Given that India is one of the few countries with
an incredible living heritage of textiles, Padmaja
committed herself to working with rural artisans
that craft hand-spun, handwoven natural fibres.
“Working with handlooms provides flexibility,
versatility, and innovativeness. The use of
handlooms has many advantages, including less
capital-intensive projects, use of minimal power,
eco-friendly quality, flexibility for small production,
and adaptability to market requirements. Besides,
with textiles being the second largest employment
sector in the country—after agriculture—they can
also play a key role in decentralising wealth and
employment generation in rural areas,” she says.
Over the years, Padmaja has worked with
master weavers from West Bengal, Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam.
In the aftermath of the devastating floods in
Kerala in August 2018, Padmaja, along with
other designers, pledged to support the ‘Save
the Loom’ project to help the weavers of
Chendamangalam, who lost their looms, homes,
and lives to the flood waters. A meaningful
collaboration between weavers and designers,
the project endeavours to weave a contemporary
language for the Kerala mundu (traditional
sarong/dhoti), thereby creating new domestic and
international markets for it.
While the textile heritage in India is an
invaluable resource, Padmaja adds that it
also comes with a big responsibility. “Fair
compensation, good working conditions, and a
sense of pride and ownership are bare essentials
to keep these crafts alive so that the next
generation is motivated to take them up. It is the
responsibility of the designers and society at large
to support and strengthen the rural economy,
ensure that our rural artisans—the keepers of
ancient textile traditions and wisdom—are given
their due dignity,” she explains.
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I APPAREL I
June 2019
ROOTED IN SUSTAINABILITY
The clothing industry alone is responsible for
colossal levels of environmental pollution in
the form of pesticides, toxic textile dyes, and
conspicuous consumption that leads to the
creation of landfill. Padmaja believes that during
such times, it is for each one of us to choose
sustainability; to make thoughtful, informed
choices, treasure natural fibres, limit synthetics,
buy well, support local makers, unfollow
trends, embrace home-sewing and eco dyes,
exchange, donate, and recycle—in short, to
practise slow fashion is the only way to be. And
these sentiments manifest in her abiding ethos
of designing garments mindfully and slowly,
in limited numbers, with deep respect for the
environment, the maker, and the community. Her
garments retail at Cinnamon, Bangalore; Elahe
and Anonym, Hyderabad; Amethyst, Chennai;
Options, Ahmedabad; Mélange, Mumbai, Jurgen
Lehl's Babaghuri, Japan; and at trunk shows and
pop-ups in Kuwait and Japan.