GOOD intentions

India’s biggest fashion house is also its most eco-conscious. Rujuta Vaidya follows Anita Dongre into her revolutionary headquarters, where plastic is compostable and small ideas drive big changes

- Rujuta Vaidya

For a long time, the idea of sustainable fashion, or pretty much anything that rallied to preserve Mother Nature, was met with an eye-roll—the environment wasn’t something that warranted much thought. After all, in an age of excess, where everything could be delivered to your doorstep, who cared? Until a few years ago, when something snapped. Climate change was no longer a doomsday theory, but a real progression towards the apocalypse. Children started skipping school to remind adults of the damage. Investment management companies cared about supporting businesses with environmental, social and corporate governance impacts. Sunday brunches were replaced by beach clean-ups. People gave up meat. Eco-anxiety became real.

I ask Anita Dongre, the force behind India’s largest fashion house, a woman committed to building a sustainable brand from day one, if she thinks we’ll emerge alive in ten years’ time. Sitting in her hair and makeup chair, jetlagged, in a shirt dress she designed four years ago, she sighs in the affirmative.

If we had to define the 2010s, we would call it the decade of the good girl. Fashion cleaned up its act and, despite many wrongs, the shift towards making the industry a greener one became urgent. Though nearly every brand now adheres to it, back when Dongre started her journey, the term ‘sustainable’ didn’t exist. However, a strong sense of conscientiousness always powered her actions: “I put my personal philosophy into my work.”