Fashion Open Studio is Fashion Revolution’s showcasing initiative comprising of presentations, talks, and workshops with emerging designers, established trailblazers and major players, to celebrate the people and processes behind the process of making our clothes. When designers open up their studios to the public it creates a space for honest conversation, transparency and accountability. It also gives designers an opportunity to share their innovative and creative solutions to some of the urgent social and environmental challenges facing the industry today.
Lakmé Fashion Week joined hands with Fashion Open Studio to highlight the work that goes behind the conscious designer label 11.11/Eleven Eleven by Shani Himanshu and Mia Morikawa in effort to make supply chain transparency an important conversation.
Designer Shani Himanshu and Mia Morikawa founded 11.11 in 2009, which is renowned for its 100 per cent natural dyes and use of heritage handloom weaving, hand painting, miniature tie-dying and quilting. The brand has unveiled a line of relaxed shapes, which are designed with an emphasis on equitable supply chain network of climate beneficial indigenous plant and animal-based non-violent Desi yarn for knitters and weavers.
The label traced the path of the creations from ‘Seed to Stitch’ and from ‘Soil to Garment’ with the launch of an innovative technology with the aid of an NFC button that offers the potential of radical transparency in every garment that is produced by the brand.
It was an interesting presentation that the film revealed about the expert art of transforming the cotton into yarn, which is the building block of woven and knitted fabric, hand spinning, (and age-old practice of transforming fibre into yarn), plying, which was then carefully dyed in shades of indigo, allowed to dry and them beautifully knitted or crocheted into a stylish pullover. The film also highlighted the effort of women hand spinners and the importance of their skills in the international value chain.
The amazing technical part of the garment was the attachment of the NFC button under a knitted cover, which when the garment was opened from its organic packing, would allow the buyer to locate the exact destination of the spinner, dyer, weaver and artisan who knitted or crocheted the apparel, through the mobile phone app that will provide the perfect history of the garment from ‘Seed to Stitch’.
The app created by 11.11 will inform the buyer with a Meet the Maker video, as well as images of the processes through which the garment went through before it arrived in the hands of the buyer. This amazing technology also showed the various artisans who are responsible and their contributions towards the end result of the stitched apparel.
Orsola De Castro, Co-Founder Fashion Revolution, “I personally have a soft spot for Lakmé Fashion Week, in particular, the sustainability day and it is a privilege and passion to work together with Lakmé Fashion Week again to highlight the work of some of the amazing local designers.”
