Climate couture

Traditional textile crafts in India face extinction due to changing social and climatic conditions. How much longer until all we're left with is nylon and polyester?

- By THEA MULCHANDANI.

HANDLOOM HOMES The post-flood revival of the Gandhi Smaraka Grama Seva Kendram centre in North Paravur, Kerala, by Save The Loom.

Assam’s muga silk comes from the cocoons of a silkworm species that cannot exist outside the specific climatic conditions of the Brahmaputra Valley. Unlike most silks, muga is not dyed—the luminous gold is inherent to the fibre itself. It even becomes glossier with wear. Traditionally, almost every household maintained small silk farms in their backyard, but that system is growing increasingly fragile.

“One early morning last April, I received a call from one of our farmers,” recalls Jagrity Phukan, a designer and the founder of Way of Living Studio, whose Assam-based textile practice works primarily with muga, eri and mulberry silks, as well as cane, bamboo and various indigenous fibres. “She was crying. There had been an unseasonal hailstorm overnight, and the entire muga crop for that season was gone. Her roof was damaged too, but she kept saying, ‘Leave everything else—this crop was supposed to be ready in three days.’”

Across India, this pattern repeats. When ecosystems collapse, so do livelihoods. When we talk about fashion and climate change, the conversation is usually unidirectional. Fast fashion creates waste, factories pollute rivers and supply chains are opaque. This is all true, but there’s another side of the story that rarely gets the same, if any, attention. What happens to indigenous textiles and crafts when the climate they depend on starts to collapse?

Our country’s natural ecological diversity has gifted us a corresponding textile heritage. In the north, pashmina—so fine it can pass through a ring, yet warm enough to survive Himalayan winters—is under pressure. It comes from Changthangi goats, reared by nomadic Changpa herders at altitudes between 14,000 and 17,000 feet. These goats grow their exceptional wool as a biological response to extreme cold.