Threads of compassion

Designers are using 'Ahimsa' silk, a more humane process of producing silk, for their creations on the international platform

Did you know that nearly 30,000 silkworms die a torrid, brutal death to make that one sari? It was armed with facts such as these that designer Archana Kochhar made her way to the New York Fashion Week Spring Summer 2016 in September this year. It was a special occasion as the event marked the international debut of her collection specially crafted from Ahimsa silk or "peace silk". "Unlike the usual process in which silkworms are boiled to death, in Ahimsa silk, each worm is allowed to escape the cocoon, after which the thread is spun," she says.

It all started a year ago, when Kochhar came on board the Make in India campaign and became the goodwill ambassador for Jharkhand Silk Textile and Handicraft Development Corporation (Jharcraft). The idea was to promote the distinctive Ahimsa silk, the processing of which is done mostly by women artisans in the state. "We wanted to make the fabric popular and also increase the earnings of the artisans, 80 per cent of whom belong to tribes," says Kochhar. She remembers sitting with the artisans and joking that how cool it would be if the collection made it to international platforms like the New York Fashion Week. "And it did! It's so uncanny sometimes that you say something in the moment and it actually comes true," she says.

Her collection, titled Ahimsa Resama, brings together global silhouettes with ethnic embroideries. With beige and ivory dominating the palette, hundreds of cocoon-shaped textures have been incorporated in the embroidery along with traditional zari. Rose gold embellishments and Swarovski sprinkles have been used extensively to give the garments an exquisite touch. What makes Kochhar's collection even more significant is that it is after a long time that a mainstream designer has used Ahimsa silk in a contemporary idiom. The last one heard of it was when Wendell Rodricks created a special collection for Gandhi Jayanti in 2009. Deepika Govind too has been creating "nonviolent shawls and saris", but with Eri silk, which is different from Ahimsa silk. In the former, the silkworms feed on castor plants, while in the latter, they feed on mulberry leaves.

Designer Archana Kochhar who used Ahimsa silk for her collection at the New York Fashion Week

"The mulberry filament is finer and often breaks into pieces. It is more difficult to spin a yarn from that, and hence is more expensive," says Hyderabad-based Kusuma Rajaiah, the man who is considered a pioneer in the Ahimsa silk technology in India. "Janaki Venkataraman, then first lady of India, had come to Hyderabad on a visit and wanted a traditional sari. She asked if it was possible to make a sari without killing the silkworm. Her remark got me thinking and I started researching the subject in 1991," says this former technocrat. Finally in 2000, he created a marketable collection and christened the silk as "Ahimsa". "I am a follower of Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence," says Rajaiah, who holds a patent for this eco-friendly mulberry silk. The fabrics from his production facility have made their way to the wardrobes of Hollywood stars such as Courteney Cox. "She invited me to the US and spent an hour discussing the Ahimsa silk over dinner," says Rajaiah. The pre Oscar gown for filmmaker James Cameron's wife was designed using Ahimsa silk from his facility.

Be it at Rajaiah's production unit or Kochhar's workshops, the process to create Ahimsa silk is uniform across the country. For instance, Rajaiah purchases live cocoons from farmers and keeps them in a bamboo basket. After a two-week wait, worms pierce the cocoons to emerge as moths. It is from this broken cocoon that silk is extracted. It is a time consuming process, with the yield being considerably lesser than what one would get by the usual process. It is this that makes the Ahimsa silk at least one-and-a-half-times more expensive than traditional silk. "But, none of this matters when you think of the lives of half a million silk moths that were saved in the process," smiles Kochhar.