If one were to describe Ka-Sha’s clothing range in two words, they would be colour and geometry. Angles and triangles thinly outlined in black are thickly filled with all manner of colour, sometimes monochrome, sometimes a veritable rainbow, but at all times, vivid and vivacious.
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From swirling dresses to sharp jackets and everything in between, the Pune-based label, helmed by designer Karishma Shahani Khan, is creating a hue and cry on social media with its unique take on design and mad angles. “Over the last two seasons, we have been exploring geometric patterns extensively,” says Khan, adding that she uses applique to achieve a complex symmetry of colour, shape, and pattern. “We combine contrasting concepts, which is something like organized chaos. Our visual language is about taking India to the world,” she adds.
The brand is about sustainable clothing for modern women, which is why Khan uses artisanal techniques and upcycled materials to create garments that are mindful of the maker and the wearer. “We want people to understand and appreciate handmade work, especially its time-intensive and intricate nature,” she says.
Khan’s design journey began more than a decade ago in 2010. Her degree in fashion technology from the London College of Fashion, and a two-year stint in various aspects such as retail, production, development, and sampling, gave her a larger understanding of how the industry functioned. Her experiences at craft villages also paved the way for her own label in 2012. “The myriad crafts India has to offer was what inspired me deeply back then, and continues to do so,” she recalls.
Talking about her design ethos, Khan says Ka-Sha is about using design as a tool to make impactful changes. “We draw a lot of inspiration from people and their stories and from everything around us. The goal is to put mindful practices of reusing and recycling in place and make the best use of the resources at hand. We also believe that happy people make happy products and our people are at the core of everything we do,” she adds.
Using scrap material to make garments and accessories is the brand’s forte, and Khan consistently works on creating a circular system where all the waste generated in making one product finds its way into another. This philosophy led to ‘Heart to Haat’, which is Ka-Sha’s line of zero-waste upcycled apparel and accessories. “We strive to make our products least wasteful and work with techniques that can be sustained in the long run,” she says. Khan usually buys fabric scraps and adds dyeing and surface techniques to them to produce garments in small batches only.
As for the challenges and opportunities of being a sustainable fashion brand in India, Khan says there is a lot of misinformation about sustainability today. The word, in fact, is used rather loosely. “We like to refer to Ka-Sha as a ‘conscious’ brand rather than a ‘sustainable’ brand. For us, that means building a system that follows mindful practices of upcycling and is self-sustaining in terms of resources.
It is for this reason that her clothing hinges on functionality and comfort. “We make products for people who have multi-layered roles, products that can be worn repeatedly, in different ways. Therefore, a lot of our pieces are also made reversible, such as our upcycled applique jackets and dresses, so our customers can use them in different situations as they see fit. Functionality is not an afterthought for us; it is an essential part of our design process,” she explains.
As for future plans, the designer is working on a zero-waste collection set for an October launch, as well as a new everyday-wear line that is focused on indigenous Indian textiles.