The world is leading towards a huge crisis of food, disaster, conflicts, massive migrants, global warming and many more. At JD Design Awards 2022 designers Jyothika Kanu Baniya and Roshni R curated the collection Spirit of Earth behind which their idea was to find a solution by safeguarding the soil. According to the designers, “We can solve all these problems looking below our feet. Soil is the only solution for all above problems. If we save soil we can preserve our planet, and the life on it. Through this design we are re-introducing a rare fabric which has properties of almost all fibres and is eco friendly. It does not require much water in processing and has been used by an endangered tribe in Nepal for centuries. Thus, as a designer, I am contributing by making fashion sustainable and the life on earth happy using eco-friendly, vegan, organic fibre and the process which if gets into soil it will convert into organic content and enrich it rather than killing and turning into sand.” 

The collection is based on the two inspirations and merges them together. First there is the soil, because the movement that is taking place today is desertification, so it must be taken care of for the future generation, otherwise they will starve: environmental migration, food shortages, global warming and water shortages, etc. so our soil needs to be taken care of. 

The second inspiration is the Nepal Tribe. They produce their own fibre called Himalayan Nettle, it’s an organic and sustainable fibre. The wild-growing Himalayan giant nettle is a perfectly sustainable rhizome, with shoots growing over three metres tall each year. Harvesting the upright stems cleans up one year’s growth and leaves room for healthy, lush new shoots the next year to better absorb CO2. It also promotes root growth for soil stabilisation in mountains prone to landslides. 

The climate in the Himalayas affects the whole world. Forest professionals believe that harvesting our raw material and removing dead stems could very well have a net positive effect in this mountainous environment. Using a proprietary extraction process, the designers produced a long, lustrous fibre that is spun by commercial mills to create beautiful and unusual yarns for use in luxurious interiors and high-end apparel. This fibre is therefore used in the collection, Spirit of the Earth. The colour and silhouette generation are from the trunk of the tree.

The designers with their unique fabric and design curated out of it also received the Special Jury Award from JD Design Awards 2022.

Moodboard

Collection

Words By: Harini K V
Batch: MA in Fashion Communication