School
of Fashion
Indira Varma
As a fashion designer, Indira is passionate about environmental sustainability and community building. Her design process is anchored in two pillars: placing nature central in all design decisions, and supporting community craft practices within the sphere of cultural sustainability. She is inspired by history, artifacts and natural ecosystems. Her current research is focused on natural dyes, block printing and fashion ecology.
Work
Ratnagarbha: The Repository
Ratnagarbha: The Repository is a Spring/Summer 2023 womenswear capsule collection inspired by the ways of living of Indian royalty and the palaces and art found in the city of Jaipur, India.
This project is a universal nod to the countless jewels that go into making fashion products – the art, culture, techniques, materials, wisdom, people, local traditions, history, the tangible and the intangible.
The collection is anchored in two pillars. Firstly, placing nature central to all the design and production decisions with a key focus on the use of natural materials and dyes and secondly, supporting cultural sustainability practised by craft communities with the use of hand block printed textiles. The project lays strong emphasis on a sustainable production system to create a net-positive impact on the environment and society and aims to re-address the issues around exploitation of artisans, disrupting the West-driven system and vesting the power back into craft communities who are stakeholders in this collection.
