COLOURS Of NATURE

Designer Seema Mathias walks Akshaya Pillai through the vision behind her earth-inspired clothing brand

- Akshaya Pillai

The walk from Seema Mathias' home to her studio in Colaba takes exactly three minutes. During this, she pauses by the expansive almond tree, gathering crimson red fallen leaves, each the size of her palm. This is followed by the rustle of fallen mango and casuarina leaves hastily bunched into a bouquet. A visit to the local florist is the last customary pitstop on a typical workday, where she bags up all the withered and wilted flowers that would otherwise end up in a garbage dump. On more leisurely days, Seema keeps an eye out for sidewalk treasures-seed pods, henna leaves and indigenous weeds. Once back in her 860 sq ft studio, she lays these gifts from nature, like good ideas waiting to be unveiled, out on the table before her nine-member all-women team.

Mathias firmly believes that sustainability starts from a closer relationship with nature's rhythms. Observing leaves and flowerstheir shapes, colours and patterns. "The whole process is so calming. I love going to work. I don't even call it work!" she says right before showing us some of her recent experiments in dying kala cotton using pomegranate.