Do you remember what it was like, back in your classroom? Guarding your pencils, sharpener, and ruler from your classmates who had been eyeing them for days; neat rows of chairs which got all jumbled by the end of the day; a huge dusty blackboard from where you took your notes. But some classrooms are a little different. We visited the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, where ideas flow as freely as the campus does. An idea can come from the most mundane of things and what better muse than nature itself. Classrooms are never confined by walls, and here that is true to the point where one cannot tell where nature ends and the classroom begins.
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Right within this world of ideas is the world of materials, in which the students engage at the level of design – thinking, questioning, and reimagining the ways in which we have come to know them. And one such space of exploration is the textile lab at NID.
At the end of every semester, students generally work on a design project. Each design project spans a duration of six or eight to 10 weeks.
Giving out details of the recent design project, Vishnupriya Narayanan, Faculty, Textile Design Discipline, NID said,
This particular one was for about a duration of six weeks where one is able to look at project briefs which could range from anything that concerns them to anything they would like to take up - an emerging issue around where we are and what we see. In that context, this year particularly, we had the students talk about what is it that really bothers them and also with the current generation, particularly Gen Z as we speak, they had a particular sort of inclination towards responding on topics like thrifting and excess consumption and many questions around that.
And that's how, for a six-week project, the teachers and students at NID decided to explore the second-hand clothing market.
Aligning their curriculum with a specific goal, the students are made to engage with sustainability by repurposing the fabrics and learning the skill of turning something old into something new.
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Vishnupriya added,
All of that led to one thinking about what is our Indian philosophy and one also dives into the subject of traditional Indian textiles. Given all of that one was fully aware that of course, we were doing something to address recycling or you know as a culture itself. The broad theme for this module was given to students in three part components - repair, repurpose and remember. We thought as much as all of this was part of us, what do we do to remember that this is very much around us and has been very much part of not just India but across the globe.
It was during the design projects of previous batches at NID that the faculty realised just how much waste fabric is generated by their coursework. Sensing an opportunity in those torn and cut-up scraps of cloth, they decided to make the waste a part of the curriculum itself, encouraging the students to innovate with the leftover fabric from not only within the campus but also outside it.
Vishnupriya added,
However, it may sound like it's just another embroidery technique but it was more about the Japanese philosophy of looking at resources from a point of view of respect and what all that can do. So, that kind of threw them into this way of thinking and then they were set out into the market where they were a large group of 20. They were divided into questions of what, why, where, who, where and how. The ‘what' team can ask all the ‘what' questions that come to their mind like what is this market about? They were to find the answer. Why is it located here? So, the why team had to find the answer.
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Setting out for their projects, the students venture into Ahmedabad's Dilli Darwaja market, the city's largest market for second-hand clothes. But what they witnessed there was little unexpected – an unorganised market.
Isha Bapat, a student of Bachelor in Textile Design at NID said,
I was surprised that it was not even a proper market. It is just a stretch of road and vendors are sitting on the footpath and a little bit of the road.
Kanupriya Lohia, another student said,
I have seen markets in other places and you'd expect it to be like a proper shop, at least with a shed or a counter. But when we entered the market, we saw that on one side of the road were utensil and firecracker sellers and on the other side were just women sitting with their bundles of clothes right on the floor.
The next task was to sift through piles of fabric, to find the one that suits their design and plan.
Pari Varia, another student at NID is a Gujarati and she believes that her being a Gujarati and knowing the language well benefits her in bargaining for second-hand clothes.
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Lakshya K another student, who is a regular visitor to Dilli Darwaja market said,
Since we have come here multiple times, we know how to interact with them. They also know that we come here often for different projects. There are particular vendors we go to directly.
Talking about her students and their skills to maneuver through the market, Vishnupriya said,
They now have contacts; they can call them up and say, ‘I want this type or colour of saree'. They have sort of understood and become very comfortable with uncertainty. They know that it's not like you go to a shop where you can match a blouse with your saree. Here they have understood what is there. In fact, they came back and mapped what all comes when, how this market changes, and what would this be during monsoon and they went back and questioned. The students were also concerned about the fact that these vendors did not have a proper space and how they often get warnings from cops to either clear out the space or pay a fine.
Vishnupriya believes it is the humanitarian angle that got the students concerned and connected to second-hand cloth sellers and recyclers.
Sharing her experience of coming to the market, Ananya Mehandale said, the first time she visited Dilli Darwaja, it was overwhelming to see the amount of textiles around. She added,
Even variety, from hand woven beautiful sarees to socks, everything is there. Now I am definitely more acquainted. I know a few people who sell sarees and I go to them. They also know that I need polyester sarees so they show me exactly that. That way I have figured my way out.
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What are the things these design students keep in mind while shopping for second-hand clothes? Misti Bharti said,
It depends on what project I am working on and the amount of money I want to spend. Also, the quality of material like if I am working with ply spading or sprang, the quality of cloth and how heavy or light it is – are some of the criteria to keep in mind.
While Dilli Darwaja is historically one of the most prominent markets in Ahmedabad, offering students full-size garments to work with, there is another lane nearby, where another kind of textile scrap is sold. This is Dariyapur. On offer here – excess fabric from factories, from sarees to bedsheets, and also scraps of cloth called katran.
Sharif, runs a shop in Daryapur where he sells excess fabric waste purchased from factories. He is the fourth generation involved in this business. He said,
Cloth scraps (katran) don't have any value. It is used to make Godhadis or quilts.
Rishabh, a student has chosen patchwork as a method of reworking the patches. He wanted patches with floral patterns and for the same, he visited Dariyapur.
The waste fabrics I chose from the Dariyapur market were all like an industrial waste of bedsheets and so they had floral prints in common. I started patching them together; though they did not look continuous they had all sorts of patterns on it
Another student, Gauri Shrivastava purchased a bunch of scrap clothes. The idea is to use the patterns of a shirt into making something that gives comfort. She explained,
Using quilting as a technique, I wanted to use the patterns which are already there and use them in a quilt or a body pillow, or a piece of furniture like a bean bag or something.
Vishnupriya added,
The perception is ‘this is not something that I can buy'. But younger people are trying to do something about it and making extraordinary products. Once upon a time, it used to be the new that replaced the old, but today you see the new replacing the new. In a scenario like this, it's amazing how some of the young people are trying to make their two bits count. With the complete competition that the market may pose, they are still at it.
Using second-hand clothes doesn't mean buying scrap and putting them together. There are challenges involved like you don't get to really choose. Shruti Suresh Pawar, Bachelor in Textile Design student said,
We have limited choices when using second-hand clothes. We have to let the material direct us. People who opt for the patchwork technique look out for colours that will complement each other.
But what keeps these students going is the consciousness that they bring into their projects. Isha Bapat, one of the design students said,
For this particular project, we did go to the second-hand market to source the materials that is bringing in a consciousness that my generation I think already has. Because we are getting increasingly more interested in thrifting and second-hand clothing so, we already have that sustainable mindset and we try to bring it in our projects through ways of reusing and just minimalising waste and making sure that when we are using the material we are not wasting any of it.
Vishnupriya believes that this is just the beginning which needs to be appreciated. She explained,
The wishful thinking was that we will really arrive at a product, however the kind of challenges one faced in trying to just test out: ‘is my method really the one I should have chosen' but, I think in this particular experiment, was to only see that this thinking itself therefore was seen as a product. I think the product here really lies in the celebration of having made that effort and an attempt to be excited about saying ‘let's just see what we can do'. The product is really the fact that one made a beginning, and that's where this is.
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