What does it mean to decolonise fashion? Especially when designing a collection for London Fashion Week
5 days ago, my designs launched at London Fashion Week. One of the big fours for fashion!
An ode to every hand that works with Jiwya at the London Fashion Week SS26
This is a big achievement for me, given that I never learnt design. In fact, I am a textile scientist. My work was always behind the curtains – way before the models showcase fashion and artwork in front of the world.
So how did I get here?
Because I was tired!
Tired of the norms of the fashion industry polluting at every step. Frustrated with trying to clean up internally and meeting a dead end. Annoyed at the attitude of the textile industry to let things continue as is. So I set out to change the system and prove that there’s a better way for fashion, with my cofounder Adhiraj, another textile scientist who shared the frustration.
We quit our jobs and set sails to create the cleanest possible, 100% plant-based fashion supply chain. After months of research, we created our soil-to-soil supply chain and launched Jiwya. This also involved driving 19,000 kms across India to learn about generational textile arts.
Decolonising fashion by handspinning on charkha and weaving in a pit-loom, indigenous fabric making
Then came the tough question – which designer will use these materials. The answer – hardly any!
Most designers only asked about the drape, feel, or weight of the material, not where it came from or where it will end up. Naturally, I was worried if our ethos would translate into the actual clothes. Adhiraj came up with the solution – why don't I drop everything and focus only on designing for Jiwya?
I had always been drawn to art – I paint, but only because I'm passionate about it. Not as a commercial designer. So maybe, it was time to combine my passions – of art and of cleaning up the fashion industry. I made the designs for our first collection over the next month. And we decided to use them all.
2 years later, my designs are on the runway at London.
A big learning—or rather un-learningʼ—curve happened in these two years. When we started to clean up the fashion supply chain, step-by-step, the most common resistance we heard was ”it has always been like this”.
And we asked the question - what is ‘always’? The answer was not centuries ago, – it was how colonisers set up the system of mindless extraction.
Am I saying the troubles of fashion pollution go back to 200+ years? Yes!
Image: pexels-mumtahina-tanni
The more we delved deeper, the more we unravelled how everything at large is set by the colonial rule of the Global South. Industrial revolution unfortunately is a byproduct of extractive colonisation. So are our systems – extractive, patriarchal, non-inclusive, non-diverse, and only catering to the white gendered majority to benefit the most. This became a sub-vision and the unlearning - how to dismantle systems that are only meant to take from the planet, while leaving it in a state of pollution and harm.
My decolonisation philosophies as a whole are for another day. Today, I want to talk about how our decolonised fashion collection for the London Fashion Week came about – as an act of resistance against this system that’s been geared against us right from the beginning.,
From the very ethos of name, to usage of fabric to variety of plant fibre, I carefully selected everything to question the conventional and shun the norm. At Jiwya, our plant-based materials and the way we make them are half the job done when it comes to questioning the harmful norm.
We build with our hands.
Khadi yarns dyed with plant-colours, handspun and handwoven into fabrics
Britishers and colonisers got machines to crush Indian arts and farmers. Jiwya revolts with the magic of hands to remove the trauma of their force and weave love for the future. We used all indigenous varieties of fibres, grown locally in India. Rainfed cotton, Kala (Dry Farm) Cotton, Linen, Jute – grown with farmers we trust and made using rainfed, pesticide free farms. No fossil fuel, no synthetic fibres, no animal fibres. Nothing that can harm you or the planet.
The colours in this collection come from using plant-dyes- myrobalan, pomegranate peels, onion peels, madder, etc. Not the fossil fuel derived, synthetic colours, that pollute our rivers and are a threat to aquatic life and your skin.
The fabric was made completely by hand—handspinning by yarns, weaving on handlooms and pit-looms, block printing using hand blocks, and intricate hand embroidery—shunning the machines designed to churn unfair wages and extractive practices that denounce the maker. As always, we disclose every part of our process transparently.
Lush Jute fields in West Bengal India, captured during our pan India travels to meet artisans
The production was as always zero-waste, no plastics, no animals, only plant-based compassion till the very last button.
It is story time!
For designing this collection, I leaned heavily on generational knowledge and told a tale to decolonise fashion through our soil-to-soil ecosystem. This is a story as old as time. To wrong the right, we need to be aware, accept, understand, grow, change, and then remember. Each piece in this collection defines the story I want to tell about decolonising fashion with Jiwya.
I have named the collection Katidha. Katidha is a Sanskrit word, which means ‘how many ways/times’. It is my question to you, the reader, the wearer, the everyday person using fashion to express. How many times will you blend your expression with colonised structures? How many ways will you mould the language to suit the Global North? How many times should you suffer to respect the land?
Katidha is my answer – a story to show you how to decolonise fashion, one piece at a time.
Katidha being narrated at the London Fashion Week SS26
I started with The Savni Bodycon Dress that shows a warm embrace of the past – a feeling that is often neglected but is the foundation of any change. It is my way to tell you to accept the past, with determination to right the wrong with love.
With The Nilofer Tube Dress, I invite you to look back at the past with open eyes, to see with clarity what needs to be changed. Let the air of change fill you with good vibes. Paired with The Gul Haar, the look symbolises compassion.
The Mahua Bodycon Dress is like a magnifying glass to the first chapter of a story. Often to learn the moral, one needs to hold the origin close. Mahua does that with its Ambi motif, loud and clear, to take back the roots. The Kalee Dupatta completes the look with a burst of subtle colours to walk with pride.
The Kasturi Off Shoulder Dress is my answer to the first spur of growth. If we have learnt the harms of colonisation and we are ready to change it, our change should look different. It should be transparent, cheerful, inclusive and open. The Manjari Dupatta, is literally, the spur of buds to propel this story.
With the Gulmohar Shirt-Pant Set and the Kesar Shirt-Pant Set, I want to show how it looks and means to walk in the present, hand-in-hand with the past and future. That it can look and bode well to keep learnings handy while we work on improving and changing.
The Ratrani Jumpsuit is my attempt to instill carefreeness in a lesson filled with hard tales. It is a feeling of joy and cheerfulness as one grows to bring a difference. This growth, this impact, should feel happy, just like the pastels of the bralet and silhouette of the Ratrani Jumpsuit.
With the Amaltas Gown, I instilled pride, pride to grow, to shine and be one with the change I just learnt. Proud to have decolonised my mind before my wardrobe, to have learnt the trauma, accepted it and changed it with love. The Saru Dupatta is a hint of softness in this girth, to leave the bitterness far back and highlight the empathy within.
At last, with the Palaash Gown, I start afresh, with shades of earth and strength of pink, like womanhood in itself. I show how change looks, feels, grows and evolves. The heritage jewellery I am wearing is on loan from Aivaj Museum, an initiative by Dand Gold and Diamonds, which houses centuries old Indian jewellery preserved and nourished with their authentic tales.
Beauty (and change) lies in the details.
Hand embroidery detailing of Savni Bodycon Dress
With the intricate abstract work on Savni Dress I show the trauma of the past but with bejeweled handwork that accepts it. The subtle yellow of the Nilofer Dress is my sign of acceptance. The Ambi of Mahua Dress magnifies the learnings to me while holding true when the breeziness of Kasturi sheds light and shows me the mirror. With Gulmohar and Kesar Shirt-Pant Set, I use colour blocks to hold the learning and embrace the future. With Ratrani Jumpsuit, I look at the night past with a carefreeness of the jumpsuit’s silhouette and with grandeur of Amaltas Gown, I take pride in my learning with a self-handwoven shine. Finally with Palaash Gown, I use the pink and tender pleats to become a person who values the roots with love, nurtures them with softness and has decided to grow.
With the barefoot walk of each model and myself, we embraced the rawness and humility of being one with the earth and soil.
And a small detail – none of these dresses ‘require’ you to wear a bra. Because the traditional attires of many cultures of India never wore a bra, but supported the body through its silhouette. Each piece of Katidha is named after many Indian flowers. Because just how a flower never forgets to bloom, I hope these pieces bring to you an energy to shine, flourish, bloom and grow. Stay tuned as they drop on our website and socials very soon.
I hope the story and courage to decolonise fashion and decolonise many aspects of colonial rule comes to you when you embrace a Jiwya piece. #injiwya also means wearing #decolonisefashion while nestling in plant-based compassion.
I am truly grateful that you read the story till here. So I ask you one thing: what would you decolonise if you could?
And who’s to say you can’t?
