Author: world of fashion

India is a country of diverse cultures & rituals but with the onset of the modern era ,some of these practices &rituals have got lost in the pages of history .But being modern doesn’t means that we forget the practices & rituals that were sacred for our ancestors.  Traditions which can be passed down from generation to generation, are the true essence of a family heirloom.

When I got married an entered in my in-laws house. I saw a kohbar on the wall where me & my husband were taken to, to perform the rituals as per the tradition which newly weds have to perform. But some how these traditions which were a must before are fading away.

Kohbar refers to the decoration of the marriage chamber. This is one way to bless a newly wed couple. The central theme of the Kohbar art are love and prosperity. In Kohbar we paint lotus plant, bamboo grove, fishes, birds and snakes, besides those of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati . So through these paintings , blessings are given for a successful marital life. In kohbar ,every painting or art symbolises something,like flowers stand for happiness while the love bird in the painting would express the ever growing love between the couple. Kohbar is decorated before the wedding and  is the most important part of marriage. The wall are decorated by the women and by home made natural colours. A kind of stick and cotton was used as a brush for that painting. Now a days the painting is painted on paper sheet. It has a great significance during the wedding for four five days maximum time of bride and bride &groom spent in the kohbar, performing customs &rituals. The rituals of wedding starts from the kohbar and end in the kohbar. Kohbar was also kept for at least one year. Kohbar is one of the style of the famous Madhubani painting

Because our Indian tradition are so diverse & colourful , the Indians who leave India for their work cannot forget the beauty of these tradition & culture. We are trying to conserve and preserve of this style of painting even while making the practitioners proud of their heritage thus I want to pass on this tradition to my future generation so that this tradition is kept alive for the up coming generation and doesn’t fade away. I hope the young generation pay more attention and respect to kohbar art in their marriages and they also keeping in mind the importance of this art pass it on to their future generation. So that kohbar art will be preserved for centuries .

I love to  drink coffee. Me &my son enjoy exploring different companies and variety of coffee. But never had i heard that coffee could be used as a fabric. First developed by taiwanese company in 2008,the use of coffee grounds to make clothes was a breakthrough. Consider your morning cup of coffee. To produce it only 0.2 percent of the coffee bean is used. The remaining 99.8 percent becomes coffee grounds and is most likely to be thrown away, never to be seen again for the last decade, Taiwanese company Singtex has made a fortune from those grounds,creating fabric out of coffee waste. One t-shirt can be made with three cups of coffee grounds. Third generation Taiwanese textile maker Jason Chen was sitting at Starbucks with his wife Amy when they saw some old ladies collecting coffee grounds. This led them to the idea of creating odour free textile over 13 years ago.  The fabric is made from the waste product that is left over after making coffee. The used coffee grounds usually just end up in a landfill. So this recycling process is truly ethical and responsible. The coffee grounds are processed to make them into yarn which is them woven into naturally high tech fabric.

Today singtex is known all over the world for mixing coffee ground with polyester from recycled plastic bottles to make a fibre perfect for sports wear. The coffee component of the textile eliminates odours, protects from ultraviolet rays and is also waterproof. Big apparel label such as Adidas, North face, Patagonia as well as niche brands like Rumix use coffee ground fabric from singtex in their clothing & shoes. The Company has a strict recycling system and uses natural gas instead of coal.

Also Oil is extracted from the leftover bean and is sold to cosmetic and soap companies. Coffee ground fabric is also utilised to make waterproof film and foam pads over the years, singtex has become a model of sustainability in Taiwan.

Mom jeans is a humorously pejorative term for type of women’s jeans worn in the 1980s and early 1990s , considered to be unfashionable and unflattering to the wearer’s figure. Straight legged, high – waisted jeans were almost casualties of reductive stereotypes about mother hood but now they’re back. Mom jeans are now quite trendy.  For most women who came  in the latter half of the 20th century. Then, Straight-legged and high waisted jeans were pretty much always cool, or at the very least Perfectly normal. Mom jeans means high waisted, loose -fitting jeans looking particularly conservative compared with what trendy young women were wearing. Ther seems to be a separation between the identities of women & mother. An expectation that a mother is particular type of women whose focus is an her children or should be and often she’s expected to be an example of modesty, particularly for her daughter. ” Trends come, go and later come around again ” . Mom jeans are making a major comeback. People love these high waisted jeans because they’re easier to wear with relaxed fit, retro vibe. Mom jeans aren’t for mums any more. Fashionista of every age are embracing the comfortable fit and flattering high-waisted design that mom jeans appear and there are so many ways to style them so they feel young and modern. I guess mother denim is one of those special brand that are more cultural ambassador than a denim line. We love there clothes. The new denim brand Mom jeans became popular with young fashionable women once again in 2010s. The term gained of greater prominence after a may 2003 Saturday Night Live skit ( written by tina fey) for a fake brand of jeans called Mom Jeans which used the tagline for this MOTHER’S DAY don’t give mom that bottle of perfume. Give her something that say I’m not a women anymore…. I am a mom

Pina is a pineapple fiber made from the leaves of a pineapple plant. Many health conscious people love to have pineapple as their favorite dessert. It’s because of many health benefits it protects from a simple flu as well as fights off free radicals that cause cancer. It cleans the internal system to keep our body healthy through fibers that help in proper digestion. We are able not only to keep our internal system clean but also to achieve an outer elegant appearance. Pineapple trees are grown for their fruit. Using the leaves as fiber as well is good commercial sense especially now that eco conscious designers are looking to move away from leather and synthetic. Pineapple is mainly grown in sub tropical countries including Philippines, India, Taiwan, Brazil, Indonesia. The credit for making textile fibers from pineapple leaves go to the Philippines. Pina name comes from the Spanish word Pina which means pineapple. During 19th century Pina fabric was much in demand not only in Philippines but worldwide However, when the much cheaper cotton fabrics became popular, it’s production ceased and Pina fabric almost disappeared. Till the mind eighties of 20th century, Pina fabric was nearly impossible to find with only a handful of aging. Part time weavers working for its survival. In fact pina has been revived in recent past four decades only. Great efforts were made for the revival of this Pina trade. Now once again Pina fiber is globally popular. Pineapple leaves is an agricultural waste product of pineapple harvesting no additional environmental inputs (water, fertilizer) are necessary to produce the raw material for fabric. Because Pina threads are characteristically tensile, strong and lustrous, they require no chemical refining or extensive maintenance. The development of ‘vegan’ leather made from pineapple leaves is considered one of the greatest Eco-friendly material innovation in recent years. Since pine is from leaf the leaf has be cut first from the plant. Then the fiber is pulled or split away from the leaf. Most leaf fibers are long and somewhat stiff. Each strand of Pina fiber is hand scraped and is knotted one by one to form a continuous filament to be handwoven and then made into Pina cloth a kilo of leaves may provide up to 15-18 pieces of white, creamy and lustrous as silk fiber about 60cm long and it easily retains dyes. Pineapple silk is considered the fabric of choice of the Philippine elite. Pinatex is not only a sustaniable and ethical material. Pineapple leaf fabric is light weight. This fabric is environmental friendly. This fabric is very soft better texture than silk. Pina fiber is often blended with cotton, abaca, silk to make amazing light and breezy fabrics. When woven with silk it is known as breezy seda or Pina silk. Pinatex an animal friendly alternative to leather made from pineapple waste. This is made from cellulose fibers extracted from pineapple leaves. Pineapple based leather is very good alternative of animal leather doesn’t harm animals. It also has clear advantages for the environment compared both to real leather and to other synthetic leather. It’s created from a byproduct of agriculture, meaning its a total waste product. This is natural and sustainable alternative to the animal leather. The fabric is breathable and flexible and can be printed on and stitched. It’s also available to purchase on a roll. We should look at these crop residues as valuable resources, reather then waste, turning problem into solution by converting waste into resources. The new natural fiber.

From thousand of years humans have been  engaged in the creative practice of decorating the body from earrings and piercing to tattoos hairstyle embellish garments. Native American woman generally wore skirts and leggings often they wore shirts or tunics as  well. In some tribes, like the Cherokee and the Apache, the women wore longer buckskin dresses. Most Native Americans wore some kind of footwear. The well known garments and items of traditional clothing and ceremonial dress included the Breech cloths, buckskin shirts, deerskin dresses, the fringes, animal robes and furs, feather headdresses, roach headdresses, shawls, head baands, breastplates, belt and pouches of the American Indian. Native American headdress was their metaphorical crown. this is due to pop culture’s current intense interest in this beautiful object it is significant item for many reasons one of them being what it’s comprised of these headdress are made out of eagle feathers an eagle is seen as an important intermediary between us the human beings or an creator or the great spirit when you have done something of note for your community you are gifted a feather of this important bird it’s not easy to earn a feather I have eared two feathers in my lifetime and when you earn these feathers you can also gift them to somebody or the feathers of many different people can be combined to create a headdress that you will then present to somebody that you elect as chief sitting Bull was actually elected into his position in this manner and floor length headdress was actually comprised of eagle feathers that were earned and owned by others but felt so powerfully that he will always look out for the betterment of the tribe so he wear this headdress he physically feel the weight of his community on his head on his mind in all of his decision making he physically feels the support of his community on his back and we continue these traditions to these to this day and for those of us who still engage in these practices we feel like we have to protect them and maintain them for our children especially the value systems that are to tied into these practices and this especially goes for the children who grow up outside of their native communities and these disconnected views have already succumb to processes of self stereotyping where they look to outsiders to define there identities for them and this is important because despite all the really cool things happening in the Native fashion in stereotypical ways that it has to have frames that have set feathers it has that turquoise in order for it to be considered Indian and these points get eracerbated when large clothing companies mass production Native inspired collection’s that flood the malls and magazines and runways shows with inaccurate depictions of our cultures for. Now designer are coming forward. Desiginers are using natural resources that were used to make Native American clothing. They use plant products. Clothing made from plant products such as the bark of trees that were shredded to make fibers or grasses that were woven or garments made from cloth produced by various tribes that were woven from cotton, sheep’s wool or goats hair.