Tanushree Basu’s luxurious slow fashion line is about conscious living. Launched in Feb-ruary last year (2016), Shorshe celebrates sustainable fabrics and exquisite embellishment from artisans in Bengal. Working directly with over 50 fair trade weavers across Bengal who hand-craft beautiful cottons, linen, muslins, khadi and jamdani, the Bengali founder/designer says, “We use natural vegetable dyes wherever possible and encourage Bengali artisans with their kantha and other embroidery.”
A former advertising honcho, Basu left a successful career designing sets, styling and directing TV commercials in 2014 to pursue her love of textiles. “I inherited my love for textiles and fashion from my mother,” she smiles.“After that, I began working with NGOs in Kolkata and directly with fair trade handloom weavers. After a year-and-half, I started a small workshop in Kolkata to make garments from these beautiful textiles and that’s when the seed of starting Shorshe was planted. We almost sold out at our first exhibition in Mumbai (February 2016) and haven’t looked back since!” says the Communications graduate from St Xaviers (Mumbai).
Shorshe has distinctive clothing for women in a palette of white, off-white, indigo, grey and mustard. We love Basu’s versatile A-line tunics, which can be styled as a dress or a kurta depending on the occasion. We also love her shirt dresses and maxis. All the Shorshe pieces are beautifully finished, some withhandcrafted pom poms, others with wooden buttons or light kantha work. Basu adds, “The main inspiration behind all our clothing is comfort. I believe clothing has to be comfortable first and stylishly cut; I love the anti-fit Japanese styles and our soft jamdani textiles help in creating such clothes. I also like the overall look to be slightly feminine even though the silhouettes are free-flowing. The Shorshe woman is definitely a woman who knows her mind, dresses up not to please anyone except herself. All women need freedom from restrictions of clothing (it’s a kind of neo-feminism)!” Basu hopes that in the coming years Shorshe and her band of conscious fashionistas can give work to over 300 weavers through the year. `3,000 onwards. At Amethyst. Details: 45991630.
