The Afterlife of Cloth: Designers are making fashion both beautiful and mindful by using textile waste

I CAME TO THE realisation that there was nothing new that needed to be made. That’s what furthered my design journey,” says Ateev Anand, designer and founder of the label Re-Ceremonial. The occasionwear label has caught the attention of shoppers and a host of Bollywood celebri­ties, for its lush, lightweight occasionwear and custom designs. Think sorbet-hued ghagra sets and saris, ‘kameez’ shirts with glass-bead fringe, and even embellished denim. What distinguishes Re-Ceremonial’s design from other fashion labels is not only its style but also the fact that its designs are made from recycled textiles.

Re-Ceremonial is among a wave of Indian labels which are reinventing recycled textiles and materials into covetable new fashion. The fashion industry’s negative impact on the environ­ment has been a subject of global conversations over the past few years. The numbers are massive, with studies suggesting that of the 100 billion garments produced each year, 92 million tonnes end up in landfills, driven by excess production and consumption as well as a culture of disposability. Moreover, when clothing is made with synthetics and non-biodegradable materials (the bulk of fast fashion, and indeed a large chunk of premium designs too), it takes hundreds of years to decompose.

When designer Kriti Tula first entered the field of fashion design, she remembered seeing “mountains of pristine, brand-new fabric discarded simply due to minor dye issues or slight measurement errors”. Tula wanted to save these textiles from becoming waste and polluting landfills—which became the founding principle of Doodlage, the fashion brand she co-found­ed with Paras Arora in 2012. Over the years, Doodlage has built its business model—and a loyal following—for steadfastly using industry leftovers and recycled textiles to create new garments and other products.

India plays a unique role in the global fashion and textile eco­system. As one of the world’s largest manufacturers of textiles and garments, it exports large volumes to brands and retailers around the world. The country is also home to some of the world’s oldest textile traditions and remains a go-to destination for luxury ate­liers and designers seeking premium artisanal skills. Indian fash­ion, a young industry compared to the West, is also in a growth phase with new designers and labels emerging across the country. Meanwhile, the high street and affordable segment is also boom­ing with brands, as the market prioritises efficiency over resource retention and longevity.

However, like Tula and Anand, a number of Indian design­ers are taking the slow and sustainable route to fashion—be it working with natural textiles, eschewing machine-made fabrics, enabling mindful production, or creating their own grammar of recycling and upcycling. Ka-Sha, a Pune-based label by Karishma Shahani-Khan, incorporates textile waste from its studio to create new apparel, accessories, home goods and flowers. Rias Jaipur, a label by Arshia Bhargava and Avishek Mandal, follows a simi­lar strategy for their textile waste with its Re! collection. I was a sari, the Mumbai-based label by Italian designer Stefano Funari, reuses and upcycles preloved saris into new designs. Designer Amit Aggarwal, known for his sculptural couture and ready-to-wear that incorporates polymers and proprietary techniques, has recently found great popularity for his Banarasi and other handloom couture made using pre-loved textiles. In Ahmedabad, clothing label Tilla recycles its production leftovers into one-of-a-kind jackets and garments, while the Delhi-based fashion label Studio Medium has developed its own materials from the threads discarded from the process of bandhani and tie-dye.

On the surface, these brands and their recycled pieces are simply colourful, quirky, and festive. But creating sustainable, recycled fashion involves a lot of labour that might go unnoticed by consumers at first glance. It requires a major movement to­wards different fabrics, dyes, and textile mills, and is often much more cost and time-intensive to produce. Working with recy­cled materials demands both design ingenuity and a different approach to production.

Take Avartan, for instance, a clothing label by Delhi-based designer Gautam Gupta launched this year. The label’s debut collection comprises jackets, dresses and separates in shades of white and ivory, made using recycled textiles and featuring em­broidery and detailing to elevate the minimalist palette. Gupta, who co-founded Avartan with his mother Asha Gupta (the two also helm a handloom sari and occasionwear label named Asha Gautam), points out the difficulty of sourcing recycled textiles that are not blended. He notes that Avartan is “trying to source more recycled fabrics or textile waste which is biodegrad­able. That is hard, because a lot of textile waste is mixed. We only have cotton right now, and we are still working on more sources”. For Gupta, using pure recycled cotton wins over many varieties of virgin cotton, which may be natural and biodegradable but also consumes a lot of water. Recycled cotton eliminates that footprint and he adds that his studio’s treatments on recycled cotton also have lower environmental impact.

Paiwand Studio is another label which has made recycled tex­tiles the base of a singular business model. Founded by designer Ashita Singhal, the label works on a two-pronged approach: it recycles the textile waste for other designers, brands and clothing companies to create new textiles while also incorporating similar processes to create designs for their inhouse label. Harsh Sahay, who oversees designs for Paiwand Studio, brings up an inher­ent challenge of working with recycled textiles: there is “no one channel for sourcing”. Based in Delhi-NCR, Paiwand Studio has built a network of rag-pickers and export houses, using multiple different sources to find and collect usable textile waste.

No textile waste is alike—designers must be ready to adapt and work with available resources. Not all waste will have the same colours; they may not even be the same material. Moreover, the tex­ture and density of recycled fabrics can also pose challenges. Anand notes that the yarn that comes out of recycled materials is much thicker than “what we’re used to, for refined clothing, which can make it difficult to create opulent, light fab­rics.” To amend this, Re-Ceremonial uses a handloom, and works on long-term engage­ment with mills on raw materials.

Doodlage uses pre- and post-consumer textiles—waste collected from second-hand clothing or worn-down pieces— for their products. Tula says they “hunt for post-industrial waste and partner with recyclers to source premium yarns engineered from post-consumer textile waste.” At Doodlage, upcycling became a primary concern in response to the reali­sation that “mass production was broken” and Tula credits her heritage as a big part of this ethos. “Growing up in an Indian household, an innate respect for resource optimisation—like turning old clothes into new clothes and eventually rugs and rags—is practically in our DNA,” she says. Tula aimed “to be a problem solver and see if we could decouple the joy of fashion from the destruction of the environment”.

Beyond simply resourcing the textiles, there are a lot of design constraints and con­siderations involved in circular design. But Tula argues that these constraints are their “biggest creative catalyst. We don’t get to dic­tate fabric lengths or colour palettes—the available post-production waste or available recycled yarns dictates them for us. Because we mix different weights and drapes, we naturally gravitate toward relaxed, boxy silhouettes and modular layers rather than rigid, body-hugging fits.” Tula also had the brand lean into their products’ uniqueness—the idea that no two pieces are the same.

Paiwand Studio also adapts designs to show off the possibilities of recycled textiles. “We constantly yield to keep the character of the waste alive,” Sahay says. The label’s success lies not only in creating its own design stories but also in its industry association—its list of collaborators over the years have included Indian designer labels such as Amit Aggarwal, KARDO, Injiri and Bodice. The brand has also collaborated with India Art Fair and footwear label Oceedee.

As designers have grown more conscious of their practices, consumer perceptions have also evolved to accept the value of fashion crafted from recycled textiles. People have come to value the eco-conscious quality as well as the fact that such designs are often singular. Tula, who has witness this shift through the jour­ney of Doodlage, says, “While the technical execution is second nature to skilled artisans, the real challenge lies in shifting human mindsets—cultivating the intent to be less wasteful, to truly value resources, and to design exclusively with what is already available.” Making new from old, such fashion brands and designers are help­ing shift the mindset of how the future of fashion will look.