The slightly-flared at the waist denim top is beautiful – off-white lace offsets the denim’s dark blue while the contrasting textures create a striking effect. How this top fits into its ‘designer’ Ranjini M. Ravi’s design philosophy – refashion, redesign and refit – escapes me. That’s when she deconstructs it – the top portion used to be jeans and the lace was a leftover from another garment.
Ranjini was contemplating a designer store; a good way for the trained cosmetologist/personal stylist to put to use her experience of running a fashion technology/cosmetology institute.
She first thought she could use her skills with needle and thread, set up a designer wear store. “I didn’t sit down and decide one fine day that I’ll recycle. It just developed out of knowing that there are so many designers around,” she says. While tossing the idea in her mind, the consumerism question hit her.
An idea then struck her, ‘why not try something different along recycling or altering?’. That idea shaped the denim top and many others like it.
Upcycling, a relatively recent term, is applied for turning a used or discarded item into something often better than the original. Pinterest, for instance, is a treasure of ideas when it comes to upcycling garments.
Upcyling, in theory, was great, but she had nothing to show. Her workspace, she decided, would showcase her creativity. It took three months, remodelling and creating her creative space out of scrap and waste, throwing away nothing.
Meg Dress Design and Alter, her workspace, behind Hotel Avenue Regent, off MG Road, is small and neat, with hessian cloth and cardboard packing material-lined walls. “I wanted this space to speak my philosophy.” The office has a newspaper wall lined with editorials of South India’s leading daily, “I wanted that effect, without photographs.” On it hang three window frames, all part of the space when she took it on lease.
Ranjini is sceptical about its feasibility. The concept of upcycling rarely meets encouragement; there is neither the inclination nor the time nor most of all, nobody to do it.
“When you get branded wear on 50 or 70 per cent discount, why would anybody bother? Discarding is so much easier,” she says. But she wants people to think about it as an option.
The tagline on her visiting card says ‘redesigned refits for your golden oldies’ and the ‘golden oldies’ are a big part of what she does.
Nostalgia is a trigger. One of her clients is a young man in his 30s. He wants his father’s suit to be altered and refashioned. “I am working on it, the seams have to be opened; the effort is as much as that would go into sewing a new suit but it means something to the client.” She plans to ‘hep it up’ keeping in mind the fundamentals of a suit or a jacket, here she cannot remove the pocket hence an extra placket or faux pocket will do the job.
The tailors too are resistant to the idea, “their attitude too is – why bother?”
This nostalgia also extends to that favourite item of clothing. Ranjini points to what she is wearing – a crinkled, metallic blue skirt with a tie on the side. “This used to be a halter-neck dress, but I didn’t want it in that form any longer so I transformed it into a skirt. Therefore redesign and refit is the concept.”
She mostly ‘refashions’ into western wear – a skirt becomes a top, shorts become a skirt, trousers become both, dupattas become kaftan tops or dresses – there is a whole world of alternatives.
She , however, does not recommend turning saris into kurtas saying there are so much more versatile. “Also, I don’t like masking – not showing that a garment was something else in another avatar.” She shows a skirt, with panel-like extensions on either side, turns out it was a top and those were cuffs. She can be found on Facebook.
She is a designer too, but “I design keeping in mind that it can be or should be re-fashionable, especially western wear and wedding dresses. I design wedding dresses in such a way that they are reusable.” The men among her clients, she says, are open to ideas. “Sometimes a single element can make a difference. I had a client who came to me with linen mundus which he wanted to be made into something else. Before upcycling, I consider the client’s personal style.”
The prices depend on the work involved, sometimes costing as much as getting a new garment made. But upcycling costs upwards of Rs. 650 and the response ‘concept-wise’ has been very good, she says. “But the garment does not reach here. I am thinking of a pick-up and drop facility. People don’t see this as a need. There are so many garments, worth so much, sitting idly in people’s wardrobes. I tell them let me come and show what I can do.”
