Upcycled Fashion Brands in India

In a world still churning out trendy throw-away fashion pieces at breakneck speed, the idea of upcycled or refashioned apparel can be an anomaly. But it is a continuously growing trend and is one of the most sustainable things people can do in fashion. As upcycling makes use of already existing pieces, it often uses few resources in its creation and keeps ‘unwanted’ items out of the waste stream.

There are more textiles produced in the world today than can be used -- many of the large clothing chains can produce as many as a half a billion garments a year. And what happens to those clothes after they have fulfilled their ‘useful’ lives? About 14.3 million tons of textiles were sent to the landfill in 2012, or around 5.7 percent of total municipal solid waste generation in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Upcycling is a way of processing an item to make it better than the original. In the example of clothing, this is often taking something that doesn’t fit or is stained/torn and refashioning a wearable product from it.

Upcycling stops adding stuff to a world that is already overwhelmed with material things. It also reuses materials that will otherwise find yourself within the landfill in creative and innovative ways - producing original often one-of-a-kind items from what many concede to be waste. It is how for companies and designers to be more efficient with leftover materials like upholstery scraps or vintage textiles and to offer new life to worn-out jeans and tattered T-shirts.

Some of the Indian Brands which are selling Upcycled Products are:

1. Doodlage

Delhi-based fashion clothing brand, Doodlage is strongly dedicated to an ethical idea of upcycling and recycling. They specialize in using the untouched, not worn, or barely worn clothing of your wardrobes and turning them into nice and stylish upcycled or recycled clothing. They work on recycling, reconstructing and redesigning old vintage collections with added trims and prints. Every garment is unique in its way, using sustainable fabrics and different cuts and colors.

2. Mehera Shaw

Jaipur-based brand, Mehera Shaw is an affordable, upcycled, and artisanal lifestyle brand producing several product categories for environmentally conscious women. Their upcycling project takes into use post-consumer waste like scraps, fabrics, trims, and threads to make value-added accessories. Their vision is made on using low impact fabric, fair labor garment production, and educating customers about the concept.

3. Ka-Sha

Mumbai-based brand, Ka-Sha by Karishma Shahani Khan, strongly focuses on an ethical waste policy for creating her collection. One thing which grabs the intention of the many people in her unique way of designing, where everyday textile (cotton or linen) is mixed with a gorgeous Indian craft - be it a special dye or an unusual modern silhouette. Her collection possesses reasonable attention in many international and domestic publications.

4. Conserve

Conserve may be a great initiative based in Bahadurgarh, Haryana. It was founded by Shalabh and Anita with attention to using waste within the production of the latest products. They upcycle plastic bags and reinvent them as fashion accessories. They are socially and environmentally responsible as they employ ragpickers to gather and manage waste, which they refashion into daily lifestyle products. The profit which they create is additionally spent on welfare projects.

5. Pero

Delhi-based designer Aneeth Arora’s label, Péro, makes one- of- a- kind products by adding Indian-ness to its entire garment. Péro uses its unique skill of being sustainable for creating upcycled/recycled wearable garments from reusable fabrics. The inspiration is taken from the local people that are stylish and stylish with none effort and hence each product by this label evokes some sense of culture from where it originates.

6. House of Wandering Silk

A Delhi-based social enterprise, House of Wandering Silk works with cooperatives, NGOs, and women artisans across Asia to create beautifully designed clothes, accessories, and home décor. The label has set up a distinct image for itself by using old saris and reusing them by turning into scarves, shrugs, and neckpieces. Each product under this label features a unique story to inform which makes the customer want their ethical products.

7. Eco Wings

Eco wings, founded five years ago, is playful, stylish and India’s finest brand providing upcycled accessories. They are making conscious efforts by adopting every possible way to reduce their carbon footprint and protect the environment. They have fashionable and stylish products made out of truck and bike tire tubes, marble slurry, waste cotton, and tin etc.

8. Jaggery

Jaggery is an independent designer brand that uses industrial waste for creating ethical, green products. The brand uses seatbelts and tarpaulins for making bags and other accessories. Along with this, as a neighborhood of their social responsibility project ‘oneBagoneTree’, they plant one tree for every purchase made up of their website. The brand takes pride in helping reforest the planet and hence protecting the environment.

While we are still working for Sustainable fashion, this is one of the methods to make the Earth a better place with much less effort and money. While we are confident in brands like H&M and their conscious line-up but this could be your way of saying, I support Sustainable Fashion.