Aiming for a zero defect in quality and zero affect on environment, Greenwear and the solar chakhra mission aims to take India forward in the sustainable fashion industry.
Greenwear is the first brand of Solar vastra (garment) in India; a marketplace for Solar Charkha Missions and is soon-to-be-launched as an e-commerce store for mass customization and bespoke tailoring.
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Greenwear – The Founding Years
The founder of Greenwear, Mr.Abhishek Pathak, came up with this initiative to portray the new age of sustainable fashion; which follows the concept of Khadi (household based production) powered by renewable energy resources to create high quality yet affordable textiles and garments.
The idea of khadi, fused with technology to cater the mainstream fashion industry intrigued him with the thought of directly impacting rural livelihoods and the environment.
The next step was to name this revolution and he coined the term “Greenwear”, a platform promoting the textile value chain running on renewable energy resources.
The Inspiration – Greenwear
To address the challenge of forward linkages to the solar charkha project, Greenwear was given a formal company structure and its first retail store was opened in Lucknow on 31st Jan 2018. The inspiration for Greenwear comes from India’s traditional textiles, crafts heritage and indigenous way of living.
What do they aim to do?
- Greenwear aims to create 5,000 jobs for women in rural India by 2025 and at the start of the collaboration with Women on Wings is working with 1,180 jobholders in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The women engaged currently have valued the income and the flexibility in working hours which allows them to manage household obligations.
- Greenwear also aims to reduce the pollution and carbon footprint caused by the textile industry. It believes that it can be achieved through decentralization of textile value chain and migrating towards renewable energy resources.
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How do Greenwear do it?
Greenwear products are made using renewable energy resources. Since the quality of fabrics is modified version of Khadi fabrics, Greenwear is planning to launch new segments where the breathability and softness of fabric is needed such as Maternity-wear, Kidswear, Innerwear and hospital-linens.
Its Denim range is also under exploration where top and bottom wear collections of cotton-denim will be launched. Apart from physical retail store, Greenwear Textiles Private Limited is going online by establishing an e-commerce website.
This website will follow the concept of bespoke tailoring and mass customization. The website will have inclusive engagements of textile designers, fashion designers, accessory designers, fashion stylists and trim designers and customer can choose from wide variety of styles at every level and style their own garment.
Women at work….
Artisans can easily work from their home and are often rural households, if supported with an appropriate supply chain and skilling, these women or households will work wonders in the upcoming model of localized circular economy – says Abhishek.
Greenwear provided fabric pieces to around 400 rural women so that they could stitch fabric masks at home and submit those to block level officers.
Greenwear also sent fabric to 8 districts on demand of local administration and supplied over 4 lakh masks to various departments. Through its garment manufacturing unit, Greenwear has planned to accommodate skilled workers who have worked in the garment industry and have now returned to their villages in Barabanki due to the pandemic.
Not with trials & tribulations….
- A Depleting Environment: Textile Industry is second largest polluter in the world. To address this, Greenwear is supporting the supply chain powered by renewable energy resources i.e. Solar Charkha, Solar Looms, Organic Dyeing etc.
- Shared Prosperity: Poor supply chain from rural to global, limited technology support, dependency on subsidy of existing khadi institutions. To address this, Greenwear is providing sustainable backward and forward linkages to khadi artisans through technology driven market place of mass customization.
- Women Empowerment: Unorganised sector has 6.6 million women artisans with poor formal skills. Addressing this issue, Greenwear is increasing productivity and income level of rural women while empowering them to work on solar charkha from their households and ensuring 100% buy back of their products.
The Way Forward
Greenwear is constantly investigating on what drives sustainable prosperity in design led fashion enterprises and hence Greenwear is constantly learning, connecting and collaborating with other brands.
We can see Greenwear is trying their best to do their bit… we owe it to them to lend a helping hand!
Do your bit, here’s your chance.
Check out Greenwear at – http://greenwear.in/ , Happy Shopping!
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