Clo_ser stands for Clothes for a Sustainable Environment & Resources. It was started in June 2022. It is an initiative that focuses on sustainable fashion, utilising leftover scraps from the fashion and textiles industry; these scraps are upcycled to economically empower women and enhance their skill-based learning. The initiative also helps in preventing textile wastes from reaching landfills and joining the other kinds of wastes that are smothering our cities.
I have always been keen on sustainability and was curious to understand what happens to all the waste fabric in garment factories and how they could be put to use towards a sustainable cause. When I visited garment factories under the guidance of my parent’s friends who were either entrepreneurs or ran factories in the concerned industries, I saw an opportunity to see things for myself. I decided to collaborate with one of these factories to put unused textile pieces to use – for making saleable items like t-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies; I gradually expanded into the home décor segment as well. Collections were created based on the available fabrics and after mapping trends, colours, designs and consumer preferences.
The proceeds from the sale of these items have helped in providing stitching and tailoring training to about 200 underprivileged girls in the Gurgaon-Rewari region. In collaboration with SNS Foundation—the corporate social responsibility arm of the ANAND Group—my organization also funded their training courses that teach life skills, communication skills etc. for grooming them for future employment. Some of these girls and women have helped with making bags from textile leftovers for packaging the products. In 2022, sweatshirts from our winter collection were also supplied to Stears, an NGO in Kashmir dedicated to providing vocational training to students, to cope with severe winters.
In another project, I have collected old and used office uniforms; in collaboration with Clothes Box Foundation—an organization dedicated to clean clothing—these have been repurposed into utility pouches and bags. This has not only saved tonnes of fabric from going to waste, but also saved valuable resources. As calculated by the Clothes Box Foundation, this initiative has prevented 17,392.67 kgCO2e, and saved 977.83 kilolitres of water, contributing to mitigating climate change.
This is a small contribution from me to make a difference, and to make this world a better place.
Student of Class XII, Shri Ram School, Moulsari, Gurugram, Haryana