PLAYING THE FIELD

This Tamil Nadu-based fashion label's future-proof, seed-to-stitch model shows how to rebuild a greener production system.  

- VINITA MAKHIJA

“TO BE HONEST, if you’re not paying a high price for your clothes, someone else is,” says Nishanth Chopra. Clearly, the 30-year-old regenerative farmer, creative director and founder of slow fashion brand Oshadi (pronounced aw-sha-dhi) doesn’t mince his words. When we speak via Zoom, he has just finished giving a talk to 200 people alongside the CEO of Whole Foods, Jason Buechel.

In the last four years, the reach of Chopra’s brainchild Oshadi (a cooperative made up of farmers, weavers and artisans who work with him to create a regenerative supply chain) has grown from five acres to 250 acres, while keeping radical transparency at the core of its business. He had never even stepped on a farm when he began this journey. Words like ‘seed banking’ and ‘fruit bursting’ are not terms you hear from fashion practitioners, but Chopra is most definitely not cut from the same cloth. So why has a textile-first fashion house from India, which has far-reaching international collaborations with brands such as Stella McCartney, Richard Malone and Mara Hoffman on its roster, put regenerative farming at the forefront of its design manifesto? The answer is simple: to save our future we need to look back at the past.