W hen COVID-19 broke out in Chennai, a natural course was winding through the bleak landscape, for Oh Scrap! Madras. This startup promotes a brand of sustainable, zero-waste fashion, upcycling leftover fabric into items that are both arty-crafty and utilitarian. Think of quirkily-designed fabric-based hair accessories, decoration items, coasters and wine-holders, and you get the picture. By making reusable cloth masks, the Chennai-based company would only be checking in next-door to its specialisation. And cotton cloth masks are what its compact team of tailors are making now, working from home.
There were readily parked advantages nudging the co-founders of Oh Scrap! Madras — Chennai-based fashion designer Priyanjoli Basu and demographer Dominique Lopez — towards the initiative. Its tailors have always been remote-working. It has a stockpile of leftover cotton fabrics. The upcycling startup sources leftover fabrics from garment export and tailoring units, but lockdown is no time to go looking for itsy-bitsy fabrics. So, the readily-available cotton fabrics wiped out lingering traces of diffidence in proceeding with the switchover plan.
However, obviously, the impetus came from social and business considerations. Here they are: A prolonged break doesn’t augur well for a startup that is yet to light its first anniversary candle. The women tailors on the payroll are hardly on financial velvet ground, and a lockdown paycheck is just what the doctored ordered. And of course, what Dominique calls the weightiest consideration of all, the startup can meet a social obligation by distributing a tranche of masks to frontline workers, in orphanages and other places where a gift-pack of free masks would be much appreciated.
Social component
“As for small businesses, it is a challenging time, but it is even more difficult for small sustainability-driven businesses like ours, as they are very niche. This initiative will certainly help our young startup stay afloat, but there is a social component to it, and that is the biggest consideration of all,” explains Dominique.
She continues, “Among the 600 masks produced since the beginning of the pandemic, 2/3 are off the shelves, either sold or distributed. Thanks to the donations we had received, a good number of masks have already been distributed to vulnerable people staying in poor living conditions in parts of Chennai and where our tailors are living; frontline workers in different areas of Chennai, including Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur, Besant Nagar, Neelankarai, Velachery and Guindy; and waste pickers of Kabadiwallah Connect. And we are planning to give away masks to more groups, which include Shree Shakti Foundation, a school for children with special needs, and orphanages. Also the newly launched crowdwave non-profit organisation (www.crowdwave.in) has bought from us to distribute masks to frontline workers.”
There are the certain other inevitable questions, the foremost being compliance with accepted standards of mask-making.
“We ensure compliance with guidelines put out by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare for the making of cloth masks. It is a three-ply mask, and we use only cotton cloth of required thickness. A lot of the leftover fabrics would be of synthetic material — in fact, 80 p.c. of it — but we don’t use that in making these masks. The cotton fabric is thoroughly washed after it is sourced, and before delivery, the masks are washed and sanitised,” says Dominique.
With lockdown in place, they realise they would have to do some quick, smart and safe sourcing, when they run out of their stock of cotton fabrics.
Besides, they are functioning with just a three-member remote-working tailoring team — all of them from an underprivileged background — and Dominique reveals that two more tailors would be brought on board soon.
“The two of us head to our tailors’ houses to collect the finished masks, and to ensure social distancing, we do the collection only twice a week,” says Dominique.
The price seems a tad expensive —for those who would buy these masks, it would mean a spend of Rs. 100 apiece — when you factor in cloth masks that sell at one or two-tenth that price. How do they justify the pricing?
Dominique’s answer is that the masks are qualitative, are hand-made, uses only cotton fibre, and adheres to safety standards, and that inflow of sufficient funds would make sure they meet their overheads and are in a position to reach out to more people who would need free masks.
Dominique says people can contribute to this work by either buying these masks or donating an amount that meets the cost of making a set number of masks, and the donor can specify the beneficiaries, and Oh Scrap! Madras will have the masks delivered to them. She adds, “Dunzo is used for delivery of both the free and paid masks.” On the pattern of these masks: “It is difficult to have a uniform pattern, as we depend on sourced leftover cotton fabric. We can just say our masks are eclectic in colour and design, and roughly every 40 masks will have a pattern.”
For details, email ohscrapmadras@gmail.com or call 9789981712; their Instagram handle is @ohscrapmadras
Published - May 10, 2020 06:53 pm IST
