Born out of the core vision of providing sustainable livelihood to indigenous weavers, Mumbai-based online label Prathaa by designer Sukanya Bhattacharya has earned quite the repute among the environment-conscious fashionistas in Kolkata for its socially responsible fashion. This festive season, the Bengali couturier, who works closely with the weavers from Kutch and Bengal, has come up with an exquisite line of colourful handcrafted outfits called Debi that includes their signature red bindi motif too.
“This year we have focused on the drama in silhouettes and played around with flares and frills, highlighting the red and white colours. There are flared jamdani motif dresses and blouses; ikat red dresses; frilled malkha bindi saris in red, white and black; quirky dhoti drapes and a vivid crop top collection in a mix of weaves,” says Sukanya, who founded the label in 2016. We get a lowdown on festive fashion from Sukanya.
What can one expect from your label, this festive season?
We do not go by trends but keep our ears close to the ground to understand the shift in fashion mood. I would say that comfort, class and versatility have taken over everything else for the consumer and I guess the pandemic and the consequent shift in our lifestyle is somewhat responsible for that.
Your upcoming collections?
Our Hijibiji collection interprets the emotions we lived through in the past two years. It is a Bengali word meaning unstructured, uncertain and unpredictable and the collection represents that chaotic calm — a feeling of comfort in no structure, yet anchoring oneself through a process.
This eclectic mix bag of emotions and designs has handloom cotton outfits that define upcycled fashion with khesh dresses, upcycled fabrics and organic kala cotton from Kutch, which defines sustainable clothing. Our Puja collection is an extension of the same idea and we’ll be continuing with that overarching theme for some time now. The mood board of our upcoming edit goes back to boho-bold personality.
Rs 2,000 onwards. prathaa.in
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Twitter: @sharmidas