Doodlage co-founder Kriti Tula, an environmentalist, is on a mission to promote sustainable fashion that causes damage to the environment.
Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, and it would be shocking to know that fashion labels contribute the most hazards for its unfolding crisis.
Now imagine stitching fabric, a tailor has to make cuts and markings on a piece of cloth for the attire, and the surplus fabric material ends up in a landfill.
33-year-old Kriti Tula turns these ‘wasted fabrics’ into wearable and fresh pieces of garments. She produces high-end sustainable fashion from table clothing to stationery. Kriti was shocked that more than 73% of the wasted fabrics go in landfills, and no one reuses or recycles them for a better purpose.
More than 70 million trees are cut every year for plant-based fiber for making clothes. Also, it uses 342 million oil barrels to make polyester and nylon for clothes.
She came with Doodlage in April 2012 with the motive to sustain the overuse of fabrics that causes climate change hazards. Her purpose was to upcycle the waste materials to form fresh pieces of sustainable wearable garments.
Coming from Delhi, she is an undergraduate at Pearl Academy in Fashion Designing. She later completed her Master’s Degree from the London School of Fashion on scholarship.
After coming to India, she took her first job at an export house, where she was exposed to the production line and how things worked. She then realized she did not want to do the vis-à-vis production and fashion things. She wanted to bring a change in fashion while being sustainable to climate change.
In 2018, when her business came into the limelight, she appeared as one of the guests in a show by CNBC TV 18 titled ‘Changing India.’
Her work has been acknowledged and approved by various global and national publications. It is an encouragement for her to continue to achieve what she started as a passion and help sustain the environment.
Sustainable Fashion
Kriti figured that not many people grasp the idea of responsible fashion and sustainability. With sheer honesty, she thought, how can people consume the number of resources that are not a necessity?
With so many thriving practices, it has come to notice that people throw away clothes easily today.
With this innovation of upcycling, she started an initiative of an organic startup of responsible fashion and the value of a sustainable environment.
They started collecting waste fabrics from factories across Delhi, which were rejected for minor defects and post-wastes. The use of sustainable fashion will bring a positive change. It gave a move for limited editions, saving tonnes of clothes from landfills and down-cycling and creating sustainable apparel.
Doodlage – A Recycling Fashion Label
Doodlage was founded in 2012, but it was not until 2018 that she started working full-time in the business. Being an independent woman, she had to make and save money to invest in the company.
Now, anyone starting a new sensation has an explanation behind it. So did Kriti for her sustainable fashion business – Doodlage.
Kriti comes from a fashion background, where drawing and sketching unique fits is the motto before achieving the desired goals. She is an artist but, she is a doodler too. And she brought this creativity with efficient and sustainable fashion.
Just like in doodling, when each stroke and strands create a meaning of art, Doodlage means each garment is created uniquely.
Her support system in this journey with Doodlage was along with Paras Arora and Vaibhav.
A Lesson And A Blessing
With high expectations and thriving courage, the brand was launched. But, in 2012, there were zero conversations about the environmental impact on fashion and sustainable clothes wear. With new trends and styles, people wanted something sophisticated, not bothering about how it affects climate change.
It was not about aligning sustainable fashion but also educating people more about it. Of course, it was difficult.
Why would people even bother to ponder upon an issue that doesn’t concern them?
We want the feeling of luxury without paying the price. The price of looking expensive-ish has led to millions of trendy clothes being disposable.
She did everything, from having conversations with customers to convincing the vendors to supply them with materials for sustainable clothes.
What started as thought became a full-blown business with purpose. Over the years, they have managed to change a few mindsets on this, which is heart-warming and pleasant as a human and a supplier. To date, Kriti Tula’s Doodlage is a leading fashion center that manufactures fresh garments from waste and recycled materials and promotes the role of a sustainable fashion label.
Not just that, apart from being authentic, they focus on the details in the designs.
Pandemic Gave People A Chance About Making Sustainable Choices
The Doodlage initiative alone gave more than 500kg of fabric from landfills, and it also saved the production line in the process by saving up to 46 million liters of water.
The production of a single t-shirt, from manufacturing, transporting, and washing, takes about 2,700 liters of water, which is enough for one person to drink for 300 days.
The 33-year-old designer must have saved up to billions of liters of water.
The packaging of the product is recycled and discarded materials to produce sustainable wear.
Doodlage has provided opportunities to many artists and creative people in India and considered their help in bringing a change in society with sustainable fashion and making the world a little better place to live.
The aim is to push carbon footprint and bring long-term changes in our living and introduce sustainable wear for people.
Click here to shop and learn about sustainable fashion for Doodlage products on Instagram
If you loved this story, read a story about how “Age is just a number”- An inspiring story of 94 YO Harbhajan Kaur in Chandigarh who launched her startup at 90
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