Maheen Khan with Abul Khair, Editor & Publisher of ICE Today and ICE Business Times magazine
President of Fashion Design Council of Bangladesh (FDCB) and the mind behind Mayasir, Maheen Khan shares why Khadi needs to be revived
After the prolific Khadi Festival in 2015, FDCB along with Tresemme presented the exhibition Khadi- the future fabric show on 9 and 10 of December. “This was a stepping stone to resurrect Khadi as a green fabric. Bangladesh is prolific in producing and developing handloom materials in the form of sarees and dress goods. Over the past 20 years, due to the introduction of the power loom, the handloom belt industry has suffered extensively. As a result, many of the weavers using handloom are losing their livelihood due to the insurgence of powerloom,” she points out. Despite khadi being a dying craft, Maheen went forward with the vision to rekindle the fading trend of the Khadi fabric. “Its green, has a low carbon footprint, it’s a material that is completely done by hand which has a unique charm in itself.” Maheen observes that the revival of khadi would also secure livelihoods of many weavers and empower women as well. “Women can spin yarns sitting at home and weavers too can continue this craft for their own livelihoods. It is the most worthwhile and traditional weave of Bangladesh and it’s wonderful to see that all over the subcontinent there is a growing interest for handmade products,” she smiles.
Every dress we create has a story, a human touch and the love for our heritage. About 150 years ago, due to climatic changes and environment pollution there was a breed of plants in Kapashia that produced very high quality cotton and the spinning was also much better back then, so we were able to spin out yarns that were as fine as a spider’s web and as light as the wind,” she points out.
According to Maheen, people often associate khadi to be a coarse, heavy fabric. But Maheen notes that even in places like India, high quality materials are being produced in Khadi. “Khadi is the root of all textile and we are trying to promote the idea of resurrecting khadi as a handloom and as a green fabric,” she shares her plans.
This year at the exhibition, the designers drew inspiration from national heritage sites like Kantajir Mandir, Ruplal House, Tara Masjid, Panam Nagar to name a few heritage sights. “We are always inspired by our local heritage motifs and constantly encourage designers of the fashion design council to take inspiration from these ideas.”
“There’s such a large canvas of architectural designs that we wanted to link that to the fashion industry. Terracotta, woven mats, paper cut designs, or edible art like pitha and shondesh bring out beautiful motifs and design inspirations,” she comments.
Maheen feels they have reached a milestone in our fashion industry through their initiatives to bring back Khadi. “There is a story in everything that we create owing to the strength and beauty in our heritage and design orientation. “I am constantly explaining to people that fashion is not about the masses, in fact high-fashion trickles down to the masses the same way classical music and high-art does,” says Maheen.
Maheen believes Khadi can be a thriving fabric given that steps are taken in order to ensure the sustainability of the fabric. “We are already talking to various government bodies, semi-government institutions and the handloom board who have taken an interest and asked us to provide them with a report or survey of the state of khadi.”
She wants to remind the public that they are a non-profit voluntary organisation and not a development organisation. “What we do is that we initiate the idea that khadi can be potentially viable. After that, it is upto the handloom board and large NGOs to intervene and take up development efforts so that khadi can once again achieve sustainable goals,” she concludes.