Sustainable Fashion For Earth Day and Beyond On World Environment Day, designer Anavila Misra continues to focus on sustainability as the key to fast fashion
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Despite the setbacks businesses are facing due to the coronavirus pandemic, many fashion and beauty brands are continuing their focus on sustainability for Earth Day 2021. It goes without saying that one doesn't need a dedicated day to make their living more environment-friendly. Even the most little acts in this regard can go a long way to help make the earth a better place and our existence a more sustainable one.
Well-known in the fashion circle and beyond as one of the first designers to embrace pure linen yarns for saris, Anavila Misra, who established her eponymous brand in the year 2012, has carved a niche for herself in the fashion industry for linen saris. She works very closely with various craft clusters from across the country like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bhuj. She firmly believes that thoughtful creation can lead to meaningful and sustainable fashion, hence chooses all materials responsibly and create happy work communities that strongly focus on design and detail.
Mindful Fashion
"Mindfulness starts right at the beginning; it's never been an afterthought for us, and it continues to remain the ethos around which everything else revolves. Mindfulness is about creating fashion that is always responsible towards the environment, the people involved in the process and the final consumers," shares Designer Anavila Misra.
Developing a sustainable ecosystem and reducing waste
By nature, fashion is not exactly "good" for the planet. With the constant environmental and ethical challenges the industry continues to face, it's safe to say there's a lot of work to be done when it comes to sustainability. Instead of using non-biodegradable material like synthetic fabrics and threads, plastic and such products, natural biodegradable products work well for sustainability.
Sustainability is an ethos that the fashion of today cannot ignore any more, for all the fast fashion and its negative impact on our planet is not sustainable. "For me, sustainability is all about creating by being mindful at every step, both towards the processes and people involved. Creating fashion that not only creates desire but also social value and sustainable employment for artisans and weavers," says designer Anavila Misra.
Post-Pandemic effect
The pandemic has impacted the fashion industry in two ways. The first one is how each one of us the businesses, the people employed, the artisans have been impacted both personally and professionally. The businesses have suffered huge losses, while some survived, some had to shut down. So, the impact at large on the fashion business has been significant. On the other hand, we have got time to reflect, relook and realign ourselves both personally and professionally. The industry as a whole is relooking at the way it runs and turning to mindful and responsible ways of creation.
Millennial trend influences
Today geographical locations and boundaries don't hold much ground. Social media and technology have brought the world of fashion to our doorsteps and hence, we can't ignore global trends while working in local markets. And I always believe that global trends have a significant influence on how consumers buy given how close we work today to each other owing to technology.
