Sherwanis and Sustainability???

by Karishma Bhugani on December 02, 2016

Sherwanis are something that most men wear very rarely and a heavily embroidered wedding sherwani is something that will be worn once and then forgotten about. Consider how much work went into that 1 item. Every sherwani consists of fabric, beads, stones, thread, metal and more. Each of these elements had to be extracted or created from raw materials, a great amount of effort must go in for this to be possible. You probably think how much of a difference will one sherwani make but add together the South Asian population and the diaspora and that makes a lot of sherwanis

Sustainability is the capacity to endure and the concept of sustainable fashion is to ensure what we do from now on is able to support consumers in an ethical way and minimise the impact caused by humans to the environment.

Currently, the UK throws away almost 1 million tonnes of textiles each year and most is thrown into landfills. This clothing then takes anywhere from a few months to decades to decompose this is impoverishing the planet for future generations.

 

We usually think of unsustainable fashion as fast fashion but that’s not quite true. Yes, sherwanis take a lot of time and effort and cannot be replicated within weeks to be sold to the mass market and are rarely ever produced in large batches. With something as elaborate as a sherwani is the price of creation vs the amount of usage justified? As mentioned earlier, by work gone into creating a piece we don’t just mean the tailor creating the sherwani, we mean all the way back to when the silk was harvested to when it is delivered to the customer.



 

Sustainability is about the future but we have to start making those changes today. Every decision we make today affects what will happen in the not too distant future and at Sherwani King we are pioneers of sustainability in the Asian clothing industry.

We want to be able to provide consumers with a great range of products they can choose from but we know that it will never be worn again by that individual so we give consumers the option to hire instead. By hiring, products that have had is much work put into creating them can be used to their true potential. By choosing to hire instead of buying your sherwani you are both saving yourself a lot of money and helping slow down the constant need for new raw materials used in making these elaborate pieces.

So sherwanis are great however the current model we have of wearing once then forgetting about then is not sustainable. This throwaway culture we’ve become a part of needs to be changed so hiring a sherwani is the best way forward. You get to look amazing and get to help the environment is the process.

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