The National Institute of Fashion Technology (Bengaluru), and Greenstitched.com, a sustainable fashion blog run by its alumni, want to change this general indifferent attitude to fashion. As a start, they are organising a first of its kind day-long film festival addressing various topics under sustainable fashion this weekend.
"There is a running joke that in China you will know the colours of the next season’s fashion by looking at the colour of the river," said Roshni Rajendra, who runs Greenstitched and is managing the festival.
The idea to conduct such an event dawned on Rajendra a few months ago after she attended a film festival addressing water issues. She believes that films inform and affect people better and quicker than mediums.
"In India, sustainability is not yet widely discussed, and we think we are the right people to start the conversation," said Dr. Anupama Gupta, Assistant Professor at NIFT, Bengaluru, who helped organise the event.
"We are aping the west in fast fashion, but good practices are also to be learnt," Gupta said, adding that it was the responsibility of institutions and the industry to educate students of fashion, and consumers.
Popular in Panache
‘Fast fashion’ refers to mass-manufactured ready-made, inexpensive clothes. Their enormous water consumption, unhealthy pressure on soil, pollution of water-bodies with chemical effluents, and short lifespan make this industry one of the most unsustainable.
The event is free and open to all, and will be held at the NIFT campus in HSR Layout on Saturday, February 18. Films address topics such as fair trade, sustainable design, organic and Bt cotton, slow fashion, and handloom communities of India.
Rajendra wants to make this a traveling film festival that takes the message of sustainable fashion to as many people as possible.
"A consumer picking up a tee-shirt at a mall asking where it came from and how it was made. And the brand being able to answer that," Rajendra said, "that is what I hope to see happening."
