Want to give your traditional saris a new home? Ekaya will allow you to do just that

The luxury handloom label’s initiative ‘Second Chance’ is committed to resell and revive pre-owned Ekaya textiles

As a brand, Ekaya celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, but as a legacy, it dates back to 120 years of commitment towards building a community of over 10,000 weavers. Led by Bharat Shah and now helmed by his daughter Palak Shah, the brand has managed to bridge the gap between designers and weavers by making traditional textiles available and accessible for a new-age, more modern consumer through their contemporary designs. As a part of the brand’s 10-year reboot, Ekaya retraces their steps to the beginning of their journey to recreate memories with a fresh lens.

The Second Chance project is the brand’s initiative to help their patrons find newer ways to not just re-wear their Ekaya pieces but also share them with others. With the ‘R’ philosophy involving resell, repurpose, revive, restore and rewear, the brand aims to share with its consumers how to be more sustainable when it comes to using and preserving Indian luxury textiles.

We spoke to Palak Shah, the CEO of Ekaya, to understand more about the brand’s idea of sustainability, their numerous ongoing collaborations with Indian designers and how their 10th-year anniversary celebration is more about giving back to society.

How did the inception of the Second Chance project come about?

The Second Chance project has been on my mind for a very long time. We started Revival a couple of years ago and since then we wanted to do more. I had always had this thought that while Indian textiles, and particularly the Banarasi saree, are treated like pieces that are passed on from one generation to the other, why are they always passed on within the same household? For example, if my mother owns a Chanel jacket and if I don't want it, she can put it out in the market and somebody else can get it. So why can't we do the same thing with Indian textiles? What if your grandmother has a beautiful saree and you don't want it, then why can’t someone else buy it and give it a new home? I then kept elaborating on this idea and that’s how we came about with resell, repurpose and rewear. Rewear, for me, is one of the most important premises of the project because it’s important to give your clothes and products a second chance in order to build a sustainable wardrobe.

With repurpose, reuse and recycle being the motto of this project, how do you incorporate sustainability in your closet as well as with your brand?

I rewear a lot of my clothes, especially sarees, all the time. I try to make good choices and be as sustainable as I can. One example would be to make the right choice in picking a brand when shopping mindfully. With Ekaya, what we do is sustainable in general. It’s not just about physical practices while making the product, like using good yarn, but for us, sustainable also means taking care of our employees and the weavers that we work with, since trying to sustain them in the business is also very important to us. Nowadays textile engineering and advancement in India also lends itself to the idea of sustainability.

Over the years, you've collaborated with multiple designers, like Abraham & Thakore, Masaba Gupta and jewellery label Misho. How have these collaborations helped your business and creative process?

For me, these collaborations hold more value because I look at them from a weaver’s point of view. The minute you have someone who hasn’t worked in the field of textiles before, what actually happens is that the weavers are given a new perspective on the Indian textiles that they probably wouldn’t have thought of earlier. We, as a brand, are also given a new perspective when it comes to creating these new textiles because they come with no inhibitions or limitations and that works in our favour. It’s one of the reasons why I work with designers a lot because it helps us relook at Indian textiles which the designers, on their part, might not have had access to in the way we do as a textile brand. For the designers to come and work on weaving for just a single collection is not possible. It’s a difficult process and you need to be in that chain. So we, as a brand, give these designers access to our wealth of textiles, and in return it gives us a completely new perspective as far as design is concerned. As for the consumer, it’s a whole new design language. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Tell us about your newest collaboration with Kunal Rawal.

Kunal [Rawal] had never worked with textiles before and we are trying to get his spin on it. With this collaboration we are trying to get his take on Indian textiles. We are excited for everyone to see this collection because this is the first time we are venturing into menswear. We’ve always wanted to tap into it, but never did, so it’s been very interesting for us. This collection is going to be out by the end of the month.

What is next in store for you this year?

Since this is our 10th year as a brand, we are in a celebratory mood and want to give back to society and to our weavers. We are also going back to reminiscing how we started out. There are lots of interesting things happening this year, and hopefully we will keep on sharing some exciting news as we move along.

Also Read: Would you wear second hand clothes?

Also Read: Run by local weavers, Kutch-based studio Jeevan Indigo is an ode to the beauty of indigo

Also Read: Can fashion truly be sustainable if we overlook its hidden human cost?