Eco-Friendly Textiles - Using Natural Dyes

With Earth Day upon us, I wanted to write about something that we are all in close contact with everyday of our lives - textiles.  We adorn ourselves with them, we sleep in them, we hug them, and we sometimes sit on them too!  But, do we stop and think what goes into making our clothing, our bed linen, our pillows, etc.?

 

At Maka Maka, we pay close attention to the kind of textiles we choose to create our home textile collection. We use only handwoven, sustainable fabrics to create our finished products of bed linen, pillows, and even some home and fashion accessories.

However, I wanted to write more about using natural dyes and how use of chemical dyes cause irreparable harm to us.  

• About 8000 different chemicals are used in a Chemical dyeing processes in its various stages.
• The water consumption is almost 40 times the weight of the fabric
• The chemical dye seeps into ground water and pollutes drinking water reserves causing carcinogenic elements to be consumed by us 

Deshaj Collection

If we as informed consumers make conscious buying decisions and purchase textile products, such as, apparel and home textiles that use only natural or azo free dyes to give color to the products, we can bring a change in the demand and supply dynamics of eco-friendly textiles!

The commonly used natural dyes are derived from herbs such as indigo plants, turmeric roots, madder root, and haritaki.

Haritaki - green

Turmeric - yellow, gold

Indigo - shades of blue

Madder Root - shades of red and maroon

Onion - rich, vibrant shades of orange, yellow, rust, brown 

Block printing in Rajasthan and Gujarat is primarily done using natural dyes.  The abundant sunshine is also conducive to the colors being more vibrant and rich.

Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver

It's Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver and given my interest in all things "Eco", I wanted to stop by and explore what fashion trends were coming for 2012FW.  The show includes presentations from Nicole Bridger, Jeff Garner (Prophetik), Melissa Ferreira, who are pioneers in Eco Fashion, and fashion favorites such as, Jason Matlo.  Since wearable fashion trends transcend into home fashion, it's important to see what's cooking in their world.

Melissa Ferreira, Jason Matlo, Nicole Bridger, Misty Greer

I had the opportunity to attend the press conference and panel discussion held at the opening of Eco Fashion Week. There were many interesting questions posed to the panel and here are some key takeaways that can be applied to the home textiles industry and to some extent, our personal lives:

• All the designers on the panel mentioned how they try to minimize waste involved in producing their collections.
• Designers try to re-purpose the waste or donate to someone who can give it new life by creating other products, such a as accessories.
• They all produce their collection locally, reducing carbon footprint 
• It's more expensive to produce eco fashion but once a consumer makes the commitment to purchase a Designer label that is Eco and sustainable, that consumer knows that the piece will last a lifetime.  The longevity of natural fibers, such as, silk, linen, tencel, and spandex added to such fibers is much higher and in the end, we end up wearing the favorite Eco dress for many seasons, thus maximizing the return on the initial investment and causing less waste.

Nicole Bridger

All of the above points resonated with what we try to implement in the production of our Rajboori collection.  We produce only enough to reduce waste and our designs use colors that are used all through a collection, making the collection easy to mix and match and coordinate harmoniously.  The dyes we use are azo-free or vegetable, hence reducing use of chemicals in the process.

Silk, especially, Peace Silk, is more expensive to produce but at a consumer level it is an investment worth making as our quilts, coverlets, or pillows will last a lifetime, offering better return on investment to the consumer.

I hope more people come to the show and educate themselves on how to make more eco-friendly choices when it comes to fashion.

Monsoon skies and a cup of Coco.....

I have some great art and design elements to write about but not until next time as other impending "business" tasks are filling up my plate. :-)  On top of that, my husband and I have to now look for a specific soccer jersey representing Brazil!  No, he's not Brazilian but it's a long story for maybe another time.

The recent predominantly Grey skies in Vancouver have probably put our Monsoon pillow in the limelight and what goes well with a day that's Grey?  A hot cup of Cocoa, or relaxing against our Coco pillow.  Our latest sales at Provide, Vancouver are Monsoon and Coco pillows.

Until next time...... 

To My Mother....

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Moms out there, including my Supermom!  When we were growing up in India, Mother's Day wasn't a "festival" that was celebrated there.  For those of you familiar with India, the people need just one excuse to celebrate something and make it into a festival or something close to that.  Such is the love for having fun!  These days, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, etc. have become so important that not celebrating them makes one very "uncool".  :-)

Anyway, I never wished my Mom a Happy Mother's Day when I lived in India (it wasn't the "in-thing" then!) but now I do and each year, I do so with a growing appreciation of being rewarded with such an amazing woman as my Mother!  Her support helped me to finally take the first steps towards planning a higher education in the US at that young age. She and my father inspired the appreciation for arts and culture that I grew up with.  Her impeccable taste and love for the arts planted the seed for creative, entrepreneurial and artistic endeavors in me.  Growing up around a beautiful, elegant, and creative woman like my Mom was truly instrumental in who I have evolved into in the past years.  So, thanks and a Happy Mother's day to you, Ma!

I'd also like to thank the wonderful clients at Provide (Vancouver) who have taken a piece of RAJBOORI home with them in the past few months!  I hope your homes are now further brightened with the color and soul of our products.  The Milon pillows and the Reale pillow are one of my personal favorites.

The Rajboori Story - Design to Life - Monsoon in Calcutta II

Aug - Sep 2008

I returned to the city where our workshops were getting ready to begin the stitching process. A plan was put in place so that we could complete at least one set of each line in 4 weeks, which meant, 11 products before I had to fly back to Canada. A tall order for such a highly technical project but my talented team was up for the challenge.

The Holi quilt has over 200 patches that had to be cut precisely in the right sizes and then stitched together to create the contemporary design that we now see in the final product. The circles were then appliqued on top with careful precision. The range of colors is truly amazing in this product and even though it took the artisans a little longer to get this done to perfection, it was worth the wait.

For maximum energy efficiency in production, all the fabrics are usually dried in natural sunlight so abundantly available in India. Since our collection is inter-changeable across product lines, the fabric production was also done in the most efficient process, hence, reducing wastage of raw material and minimizing environmental footprint.

Like I said, monsoon was in full swing in Calcutta. One of those days, as I was on my way to the workshop, the rain came pouring down. The already narrow streets of Calcutta were now getting jammed with cars with nowhere to go and water filling up every possible place that it couldn't get drained out of. I did have my rain boots with me, so I donned them on, and got out of my cab to walk the rest of the way to the workshop.

Needless to say, my fashion statement caught the eye of every rain-drenched passerby. These people having lived in this city for years and years, and having dealt with many such monsoons, found it very amusing that someone actually wore rain boots to protect their feet from getting soaked in the filthy waters of all the open drains around us! I, on the other hand, couldn't help but wonder if they were actually envious of my foresight and my cute little boots!

The designs were challenging yet fun to work with. It was not always smooth sailing as we had trouble keeping the cotton-like-jacquard tops to work with the smooth silkiness of the backs when the quilts had to be stitched through and through. Keeping all the various geometric patterns straight posed quite a challenge even for the master artisan. They came up with their own methodology and technique to match the various jacquard triangles.

There were many such issues but with careful attention to detail and skilled artisanship, we were finally able to put together our samples for our first collection. It was time for me to say goodbye to my production team in Calcutta and head back for Vancouver and then onto New York for our photo shoot and review of samples.

The Rajboori Story - Design Concept - Journey to India I

Through my writing I am hoping to share the amazing story of our journey of how Rajboori came to being. There are many companies that are born every day and each person responsible for making that happen has a story to tell. So, this is my story. Nurturing a childhood passion for entrepreneurial initiative and specifically in the realm of home fashion led me through miles of exploration in other worlds, gathering valuable experience, before I found myself here.

I met industrial Designer Stephen Burks (Readymade Projects, NY) at a sustainability seminar and that's when the Rajboori story began. Having owned a silk bed linen and fabric business (Melange Creations) in Vancouver, Canada, I wanted to explore a more eco-chic, sustainable, and contemporary design aesthetic for a new luxury line of top of the bed fashion. I also wanted to create something that would contribute back to the sustenance of an ancient skill and a community that requires serious patronage. Luckily, Stephen was intrigued at the opportunity and hence Rajboori was formed.

A lot of people have asked what does Rajboori mean. So, here goes - we wanted a name that evoked luxury but was unpretentious and fun at the same time. Raj as we know means "regal, royal" in India and "Boori" in Bengali means "old lady". Bengali is the native language of Kolkata (Calcutta). Silk being our main fabric of use is an old, traditional but very regal fabric. So Rajboori literally translates to "regal old lady".