Why Ayurvedic Fashion is the Future
Ayurvedic fashion is sustainable fashion.
WHY AYURVEDIC FASHION IS THE FUTURE
Even though the word “sustainable fashion” has become popular only recently, it has been around in Ayurvedic tradition for a long time.
Sure, it’s not called “sustainable”, but the sentiment is the same: using fabrics that are grown in harmony with nature and then dyed with colors that occur naturally and do not irritate the skin.
Before we dive into what exactly Ayurvedic fashion is, we need to understand what it means to be sustainable when it comes to our fashion choices.
While we may not exactly know what sustainable fashion is, all of us are guilty of spending hundreds of dollars on shopping hauls at Zara, H&M and one of my all-time favorites, ASOS.
THE CYCLE OF BUYING AND DISPOSING
Although, these online shopping destinations maybe a great place to shop because of their excellent collection of clothes, discounts, and amazing return policy, they cause a major problem.
I am guilty of buying things I didn’t need or wore a few times before donating aka putting them in a never-ending cycle of demand and supply, buying and disposing.
Given that most of us are buying things we don’t really need, sustainable fashion and minimalism becomes a sort of a no-brainer. But very few of us know what sustainable fashion really means, something that we must understand before we dive into what I mean by Ayurvedic fashion.
I am not making a case for Ayurvedic fashion by dismissing sustainable fashion. Ayurvedic fashion is sustainable fashion, and some more.
AYURVEDIC FASHIOIN BRINGS BALANCE
Ayurveda is based on the principle that body and mind need to be in a perfect balance to lead a fulfilling life. Caution: Ayurveda or yoga texts never use the word “happy”. They in fact, emphasize a harmonious balance between all the elements in your body.
So, the question is: how can clothes bring about that change? And what does all this have to do with fast fashion?
One of the reasons clothes sold by certain companies fall into the category of “fast fashion” is that they are manufactured keeping in mind minimal costs and these companies try to maximize as much profits as they can.
WHY FAST FASHION IS UNETHICAL
Which is why the kind of raw material, namely the cloth and dyes is sub-par quality. According to this article, the workers at a clothes factory in India use chemicals that cause their skin to peel off over a period of time. The article quotes a factory worker in India:
“It was pretty bad,” he says, in his fragmented English. “But I didn’t have a choice.”
It’s probably true that a person working in a cloth factory in India perhaps doesn’t have a choice, but people living in the first world who drive the demand of most goods can afford to make fashion choices that are slightly more informed.
This could include buying clothes made of fabric that is organically and ethically grown. Not just that, which uses dyes and raw materials that are not harmful for our health.
MY “WE EAT OUR DISHWASH DETERGENT” ANALOGY
I always say that the thing that we eat the most after our food is our dishwasher detergent and the same way, the thing most in contact with our skin after our moisturizer are clothes. Choosing a good dish wash detergent is perhaps a different article altogether, but what we can do is choose clothes are not just good for the skin but also put our body in a certain balance.
The Ayurveda-Yoga therapy, something I practice, always aims at determining the body’s natural state or Prakriti and also its imbalance, known as Vikriti. These imbalances are largely created by lifestyle choices that are not in tune with the body.
How sustainable our fashion is, will decide our future on this planet.
This includes everything from the way we think, to what we eat and down to the way we conduct ourselves. The “conduct” does not refer to being aware of the way people perceive us, but rather to the tendency of us humans to fall into the trap of thinking about the past and the future and not living in the present.
It has almost become a cliché, the living in the present thing, but nothing could be far from the truth. But I talk more mindful living in another post.
AYURVEDIC FASHION BRINGS HARMONY
Ayurveda believes in living with harmony with nature and what better way to make clothes than using natural products and dying them in the colors of flowers, vegetables and fruits. It’s perhaps unimaginable for us to imagine food and vegetables could be used for anything else except eating, but it’s true that there are cultures that have used natural ways to dye clothes for ages.
Become the skin of your body for a minute and think about what your skin would feel when you wear a piece of cloth died in turmeric vis a vis the name of a chemical that has a name so long, it gives you a headache.
DYES AND RAW MATERIAL IN AYURVEDA
You would be surprised that the dyes used in Ayurvedic clothing can be made specifically depending on the type of condition you have. Sometimes, mimosa, cumin and hibiscus are added to the dying material just so, your skin can say “thank you” to you.
The clothes that you wear not only have an effect on your body but also your mind. I talk in detail here how science, that had neglected the body-mind dichotomy for so long is now going back to understanding how close a link there is between the two.
It’s important to not look at Ayurvedically made cloths as something of a fad because this is the way humans are supposed to live—by using plants to cover their bodies instead of the unknown world of chemicals that we certainly don’t know as well.