Hello, As the new year approaches, I see tons of contents one the web regarding new year resolution. Some positive, others reflecting reality. Though it is true that most of us badly fail in keeping up our own resolution every time we still try something new every year. I think I would not be wrong in saying that the new year is not just a fresh start to our calendar, but a birthplace of hope in our lives. A good positive hope and energy that we commit ourself to cherish for the rest of the year.
A good sum of this positive hope can bring about enormous change within us and outside us as well, allow me to take the privilege of hijacking your positive hope this year to bring about a good change outside us in the field of clothing or fashion. Yeah, please don't assume that rest of the write up as an attempt to preach someone what to wear and what not to wear on grounds of society and morals, it is absolutely not.
When I started to contemplate on clothing and fashion it took me way back in time when the majority of trade done across the world was primarily for clothing, usage of the term silk road or silk route that we saw in our middle school history book meant route by which silk got traded from South Asia to Europe.
South Asia in past is only synonyms with India and China, I cautiously left the latter and was taken aback with economic excellence that was cherished by us in the textile industry till the post-colonial era, the textile was the major exported good from India till the 1800s
There was a time when almost the entire known world was aspiring to wear Indian cloth because we produced the best textiles. It is a fact that Indian textiles have clothed the world. we can still find evidence of that at ancient sites in Syria and Egypt, for example. Still, there is no other place on the planet that has as many weaves and as many ways of dyeing and preparing a cloth as our culture has.
Sadly, the British systematically broke the textile industry in India to sustain their cotton mills in Manchester. In sixty years, between 1800 and 1860, India’s textile export came down by 94%.
Post partition period coupled with the aftermath of world war two bought its own set of problem to textile trade in India, Indian weavers who were dependent on the organic fabric material like cotton, wool, linen for weaving textile are now made to compete with synthetic products like nylon, acrylic, polyester which are made entirely or partially from chemicals and plastics
Recent studies have predicted that 98% of the world's fabric will be synthetic by 2030, rapid adaptation of this inorganic product has resulted in the fashion industry being the second largest polluter in the planet now.
Contemplating further, it is surprising that we have also cut-down the demand of Indian weavers by wearing all western cloth all day in a year. Wearing a pyjama and a Dhoti though being a symbolic part of Indian clothing is now only considered as a fancy cloth that we wear once in a year for posting it in our social media accounts along with hashtags culture and tradition.
The only option left for Indian weavers and Indian Organic textile industry survival is to increase its demand, considering all these I was left with these basic questions. why can't we replace our informal synthetic round neck t-shirt to pyjamas once a week ?? Why can't we wear Kurta on a casual day at the office? Why can't we replace our synthetic informal shorts to dhoti once a week??
I again take the liberty of hijacking your positive hope and positive energy in making a commitment to wearing Indian at least once a week.
If we misplace our hopes and energy, our parents would be the last generation of our great civilisation to wear clothing unique to their own geographical, cultural and ethnic identity. I am very sure that our new year energy will not make that happen
Let the almighty bless us all a wonderful year ahead !! Thanks a lot for reading!! Happy new year!! Jai Hind!! :)
Akshayaram Viswanathan
