Session 77 summary
Karishma has a label called Ka-sha, her work ranges within clothing and the entire sphere of it i.e. clothing, textiles, education –they do a lot of work in spreading the word and not just telling about themselves but also how they make things. A lot of people put them into the category of being a sustainable brand, but for them it is about being a mindful brand working in a way that they understand, is part of their value system and nothing disconnected from that.
Clothing, in general is not given as much credit as it should be given and often put into the category of being something frivolous and being only about fashion weeks and fashion shows but there is a lot of work that goes into it and not just that, it also touches so many different lives. More so clothing plays a huge role in how we perceive each other and how the world perceives us. The clothing industry by itself is the most polluting industry in the entire world, they are wasting textiles every second, even the way people are consuming and using and disposing has rapidly changed. One of the way Ka-sha tries to make a change is by trying to work with the ways that already exists and trying to ensure to take that back into the product. Currently, words like indigenous, sustainable, etc. have been thrown around a lot everywhere. Even when Karishma started she didn’t want to call her label sustainable as she feels that it is time that people really need to imbibe these values, not sell their product based on these key words but sell their product because that is the basis of what they do. So, when someone buys a product at kasha, she wants them to buy the product because they like the design, like their aesthetic, what they are purchasing is good quality fabric, when it feels good when they wear it and not buy the product because it is sustainable.
Karishma grew up in a family where people wore khadi clothes and so she never paid special attention to them. When she went to study outside, she realised the things that she had back at home and started taking them more seriously. So, for her when she talks about sustainable, about upcycling and recycling, it is really about what she has seen growing up in the community around her. When talking about sustainability it has to be about the environment for sure because it is extremely crucial, but a really big part of it is the people. Very often people talk about it materialistically but what about the people involved in it, what about how it is being made, how are they being paid, etc. So, at ka-sha it is a mixture of all these things and it is a value from day one. They call themselves Change By Design, which is their company’s name because they do believe design can make a change in every small little way they can possibly can think about it. Ka-sha is the clothing brand and ‘heart to haat’ is the upcycling brand. All the wastes that ka-sha produces goes back into products which work with functional products- home textiles or outer wear. ‘Heart to haat’ is a service that they also like to give to other people. So, they work in collaboration with other brands, larger industry players, etc. to work with their wastes and come up with innovative solutions with the wastes and how to take it back into a product which is not just about patchwork. They do a lot of techniques with the waste and it is all about circularity, all about upcycling. Right now where fashion is standing on, the textile industry in India is standing, there is a lot of hope and scope for that to happen.
Whether it is handcraft, the human aspect of it where there is a slight change in the motif because the person is weaving it in a certain way. When a person is weaving it is very methodical but there are times when seen in certain textiles their mood or how they are feeling on that or the energy levels that they have would probably change the way certain lines are woven and the same thing happens in embroidery, Ka-sha really likes to celebrate that as well. They not only talk about zero waste, but also recycling because they say that they will keep creating something for others out of things and it may not always be the same but it is going to be like a version that works for them and everything that is deemed to be thrown away or not of use, ka-sha wants to give that a second chance and of course innovation comes massively from the skill that they have around them- the makers. That is the reason why it is always about we and not I, because Karishma doesn’t thinks that she could do everything without the people standing around her. Ka-sha believes a lot in collaboration, they are always collaborating with groups around them, they have smaller organizations to make their products and something they really believe in is being transparent, they are trying to work on ways on how they can bring their transparency a lot more on their website and how they can talk a lot more so people can see who is making their products and it is tagged in a way that the makers name is on the tag. It is done so that people can see who has made it, how much time it has taken.
Starting with the first collection Karishma’s inspirations always come from places which she understood, which she always tells her students when she works with them or anyone who is starting out in that journey i.e. look for inspiration from something that they can relate to it doesn’t have to be very complex. Because if one cannot understand the inspiration, they really cannot deep dive into it to give it new meaning. So, the first collection was called Yatra, it was her journey between two very diverse countries, India and UK and she remembers when she used to come back to India through Bombay and small inspirations came from there – she used to see Dharavi all around and in monsoon the Dharavi used to be covered with plastic to shield themselves from the rain, so it made her wonder how can the plastic be used or reused to give it an afterlife. She saw a man on a traffic signal who was wearing everything he owned on his body and she found it amazing how people pick up everything that they own, they safeguard it and they keep moving around. So for her inspirations really come from things one cannot really quantify. So, a lot of colour, a lot of upcycling happened in that collection. Moving forward with every single collection they tried to revisit things that they have learned, what they have seen and what is inspiring them at the moment. All along when they started working with the upcycling part of it in very small bits and pieces and so as a brand they don’t throw away even an inch of discarded cloth, everything goes back to the product. Another collection they worked in Kutch with ajrak block-printing, the entire process of that was time intensive, but Karishma feels that the entire collection and the inspiration that they had, they were really looking at how people celebrated life-like weddings and they were trying to understand how the people function in a way calm and celebration, therefore there can be seen a lot of checks, a lot of flowers, a lot of styles that were really inspired by the clothes that the people wore in the local markets in different cities. They also started making a lot of footwear to see where they can take it. Till today they do a lot of clamping and a lot of dye work is done in their studio because it gives them a lot of scope on what they can do. In one of the collection there was a lot of hand embroidery, they worked with ikkat, there is also a lot of malkha in that. Along this time they realised that what they really wanted to do was work with a certain community and ensure that they were given enough work. So now it is the way they source their fabrics, have different people work for them so they have many families working under them and every season that fabric can be seen over and over again. Another collection which they showcased in London fashion week every 5 designers that they had showcased one community, especially one migrational community, they chose the rabaris who are based in Gujarat and since she was very fascinated by them so she was excited to work with their art and craft form and create an installation to put up in the event. They also did a collaboration with the women in Kota where they have a lot of fabrics for sarees and kurtas, they worked with an organization and tried to change that a lit bit. They worked with motifs that were known and recognised by the women and just used those in larger form.
Karishma would like say that they are the heart sitting at the centre, there is innovation, ethics and sustainability and they are trying to ensure that they take all this along and move forward.
About the Speaker
Karishma Shahani Khan
Karishma Shahani Khan is an alumnus of the London College of Fashion. Founder of clothing label Ka-Sha, her aesthetic is deeply rooted in mindful practices to create clothing that focuses on functionality and multi-layered roles of human kind. Conscious and aware of its effects on the fabric of life, Ka-Sha focusses on implementing fair means of trade while building on artisanal crafts through their seasonal exploration of the relationship between clothing and self. Ka-Sha imbibes its values further into its homegrown label, Heart to Haat, which was inspired by the very indigenous ideology of reusing, re-purposing and self-sustenance. Karishma is also a recipient of various design honours and engages extensively with institutions to interact with education systems of design on different levels. Through collaborations and fair-trade practices, she looks at design as a celebration to create positive changes in human lives. Her body of work has only widened with Loom & Hand, a web shop of ethically sourced hand-woven textiles from India and Banaae, a production and sampling service to empower makers and designers. She is also the co-founder of Together – Ek Saath Collective, a foundation that focusses on Livelihood Generation & Skill Development Activities for makers.
