Stories - IKKIVI

With Nivi Murthy

Working with our Founder, Nivi Murthy, we at IKKIVI, spend a lot of time together on different themes, ideas and intentions. In the everyday hubbub of our projects, we’d been missing out on some conversations we’ve wanted to have with her for a while - conversations around the heart of her inspirations, experiences over the last couple of years, and the processes she sees entrepreneurs and ethical businesses need to be a part of. We got to meet with her this month and have a heartwarming dialogue about all this and more, and even learn about what she has planned for our newest vertical - ‘The IKKIVI Podcast’.

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A stitch in time

Crafting stories around everyday moments

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THE ART OF UPCYCLING

We spoke with Kanika Jain, the founder and creative head of our label Kanelle, about her journey in the sustainable fashion space, the philosophy behind her work, and the brand’s one-of-a-kind upcycled collection ‘Scrap to Rack’.

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The making of timeless fashion

We had an inspiring conversation with our designer Khyati Pande, founder of Itr by Khyati Pande, about her journey of building a sustainable brand and the creative process of making timeless apparel, and the challenges faced in the process.

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Why waste is the way forward

We spoke with Akshit Bangar, the creative mind behind the label Urban Darzi on the brand’s journey so far, the philosophy behind their products, and the pertinent need to create with waste.

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How ‘Fast’ Can We ‘Slow’ Down?

Our designer Neha Kabra from our sustainable brand Maati by Neha Kabra speaks about the contradictions the trailblazers of the ‘slow’ industry are met with in the face of the insatiable demands of fast production and consumption.

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For the Love of Fabrics

We spoke with Aarushi Kilawat of The Loom Art about her deep connections to fabrics, what a revolution means for her, and how she believes we can cooperate in the face of competition.

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Changing the Ways in Which we Work

We spoke with Em and Shi's founder Mansi Bhatia about making change just as potent at the micro level as at the macro amongst other things.

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Creating Honest Change Through our Individual Paths

We, at IKKIVI Zine, spoke with co-founders of our brand AHMEV about what revolutionizing the fashion system looks like, issues that small ‘sustainable’ brands face, why standing our ground and following our hearts matters, why they work the way they do, and the many things they are exploring.

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The IKKIVI Pop Up

Two years since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we held a pop up in mid March in Bangalore, India. A sweet, socially distanced event that was all about celebrating and having fun with sustainable and vintage fashion, we loved spending time with our customers and friends in person after such a long time. We're sharing with you some of our happiest moments from the event.

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Fashion Revolution Week

As the industry is starting to change slowly, this Fashion Revolution Week, a time where brands and producers are urged to give consumers an insight into their production processes – what goes on behind the scenes at their brand – we’d like to share with you how you can be part of the revolution with us.

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CARVING a Path Toward a More Just Future

Capitalism and colonialism are one of the leading systemic causes aggravating the challenges we face with climate change. At IKKIVI Zine, we had a conversation with climate justice activist Lauren MacDonald on our present failures and struggles in contributing to climate justice, what being hopeful in the midst of crisis can look like, and why she thinks we need to move from taking individual action to collective action to make a greater difference to the movement.

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25 Books on Mindful Living

There are so many wonderful books that can support us on our journey into living more mindfully each day. We have here a list of 25 books - some conceptual, some ethnographic, some tales, and some narratives - that we feel offer something unique to all of us.

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21 Things We Learnt in 2021

Each year carries many new beginnings and learnings for us, and this time we wanted to pen and share ours from the last year with you. Here are 21 things we learnt in 2021, and are taking forward with us in 2022!

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25 Zero BUDGET THINGS YOU’D LOVE TO DO

There are many meaningful experiences we can partake in through the exchange of currency, but today we’d like to share with you some simple and beautiful zero budget activities that can bring us all a lot of joy and allow us to do more with our loved ones.

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Creating Climate Impact

Climate change has become one of the most central and pervasive concerns for us in the last decade, with increasing debate over what we can (and, need to) do as global citizens to confront and cross-examine its challenges. At IKKIVI Zine, we wanted to get a deeper understanding of how we can break down the problems of climate change and injustice at a microscale and learn about how it intersects multitudinously with other social issues. We spoke with environmental educator Isaias Hernandez about his journey as an environmental activist, the many ideas he is unlearning and relearning around the subject, the differences between climate action and climate injustice, and how the misconceptions around climate change impacts the way we approach it.

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Inviting Change in our Everyday Life

After years of detesting myself for being distinctly slow to “adapt” to the new, let go of the old, and to merge with the ebbs and flows of life seamlessly, when I looked into some particularities of my personality I recognised that I do not want to adapt to change, but invite it into my everyday practices. As I went into the profundity of the real variances between the ideas and propositions of the two words, I saw that one softened me, opened my shell and offered me something, and the other unconsciously divorced me from the wisdom, sorrows as well as playfulness of change. But what would it mean to invite change? And does something that perpetually befolds naturally even be invited in the strictest of terms?

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With Team IKKIVI

This last year we’ve been pleasantly surprised to see how alike yet different we all are at IKKIVI. Not only through our commitment to making fashion more sustainable and living intentionally but also in exploring what a conscious lifestyle means and looks for us, eating together and discussing the dynamics of the human condition, we’ve become a close knit family. This week, we sat with each other to understand the impact working at a slow business has had on us, the personal values that mould the way we want to work, share some funnies, and learn about where we are heading as a team.

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Mindfulness and Mental Health

A peculiar reality many of us experience at different periods in our life, this time of the year can make us feel paralysed and despondent. A feeling state that can arrive at its own accord or be occasioned by our complex life circumstances, it is one that requires more care and concern to traverse, than we may be able to foresee. We’re sharing with you here our thoughts on what we hope can soften the pervasive form of holiday blues and extend to you support through its experience.

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Mindful Gifting

Buying presents for someone (including ourselves) can bring up a variety of feelings – some of them pleasurable and some conflicting. Gifting can feel stressful when trying to select the “right” gift from a plethora of available options, the bombardment of advertisements at every billboard, cultural expectations and personal standards along with the uncertainty of whether the recipient of our present will appreciate what we give them. We’re sharing with you here what we have learnt, and hope that it can help make your experiences of gift giving novel and fun.

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Can Taking on Zero Waste Cooking be Uncomplicated?

To understand how simple or difficult low (to zero) waste cooking is, what myths around the lifestyle can derail us from its practice and how we can inspire ourselves to be more playful yet mindful with food, we, at IKKIVI Zine spoke with cookbook author, speaker and Zerowaste Chef, Anne-Marie Bonneau this month and learnt some invaluable features about it. We hope these can support and further your own relationship with food and the environment, and bring newness to your everyday experiences with it.

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Coming closer to Our Selves

Our bodies are the medium through which we experience the world and ourselves, yet also the central object of our being that we can often feel most critical of. As we try to take a step further into understanding our bodies, we invite you to reflect with us on the ways in which we can see it for what it is, away from what cultural conditioning, media and contemporary narratives espouse.

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CHANGING THE CULTURAL NARRATIVE AROUND ACTION

A solution to the vexing catch-22 of today’s culture might lie in a revolution, or rather, an anti-revolution – a not-to-do list, which is based on the principle of subtraction. By eliminating tasks, it serves as the antithesis of a to-do list, questioning and classifying what is really important. It takes away the restrictions imposed by our rut every day and gives us the freedom to savour, and even, save time.

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Slow Living in Big Cities

With all their eminence and bustle, cities present us with a seemingly contradictory question – can we really practice slow living in big cities? At IKKIVI, we spoke with a few artists to understand how they think of the city, their engagements and quarrels with its guises and whether it can become a meaningful conduit to live more consciously and slowly.

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Disrupting the Status Quo

As we at IKKIVI work to create changes around the politics of dress and the body, we spoke with six women from all over the world who are challenging the fashion business in influential ways and trailblazing powerful conversations on the subject, showcasing the urgency to look into contemporary models and issues that impact us at grassroot levels.

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Everything You Need to Know About Microplastics

Because the plastics problem is a climate problem, it is an intersectional justice problem. Individual actions matter, especially when you communicate about what you’re doing with those around you. Many reusable alternatives are not financially accessible to low-income folks and BIPOC (another example of plastic’s intersectional issues). If it is accessible to you, eliminating disposables and reducing microfiber shedding by wearing natural fibers is a best case scenario on the personal level. However we must be critical of technical and chemical solutions: many recent innovations like the bioplastics realm are ‘less worse’ replacements for the problem and do not negate the issue.

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HEALING CONSCIOUSLY

In beginning to slowly move back from our collective experiences with illness, pain and loss into the more routined concerns of our life, we would like to contemplate with you some ways in which we can connect earnestly with the many delicate emotions we have been confronted with since the rise of the pandemic. The unprecedented gravity of the global Covid-19 outbreak and the complex realities that it has accrued over the last couple of years have impacted all of us acutely. As we continue to trace our steps into learning how to be with the virus and our related feelings, these are some ways we think can gently lead us toward the path of healing and offer balance.

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Reclaiming Leisure Time

By meeting ourselves anew through introspection and gentle inquiry, we can know sincerely the life we want to live and let it guide what we allow into, and spend, our energy (time, money, emotions) on. In a world where the demand and desire to perform is woven into the very tapestry of our lives, living authentically must become one of our quietest yet boldest acts of self-love.

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SLOW WORK

Working slowly and thoughtfully can accentuate the rewards inherent in our everyday work, and enhance our felt affinity with it in meaningful ways. We’re exploring here with you some ideas and practices that we think can support kindle these qualities, both at and beyond our workplace.

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THE CHALLENGES OF SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES

From innovating with new materials to working through old goods and waste, sustainability and sustainable development objectives are transforming business practices across different industries. But prerequisite to each advancement in this sector are many untold challenges which underpin their inception and engineering. To understand the challenges that can encompass the establishment and operations of sustainable businesses, we had a conversation with Kriti Tula, Creative Director and Co-Owner of the ethical fashion label Doodlage.

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BUILDING A CONSCIOUS WARDROBE

For our friends who wish to recreate their wardrobes as part of their conscious lifestyle, or who would like to transition into a mindful lifestyle through the insightful and creative space of ethical fashion, we have noted below some maxims to support you initiate and continue the practice.

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With Mianzi

Questioning deleterious models of production and translating experimental materials into novel wares, the home furnishing brand Mianzi is heralding new ways of understanding design and products, and our relationships to them. At IKKIVI, we had a conversation with its co-founders, Shashank Gautaum and Ananta Varshney, on their journey into the venture, and the conceptual, material and social features that underlie their (sustainable) design initiative.

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MEET our MAKERS

This Fashion Revolution Week, we wanted to show with our labels and designers, that fashion and design, when practiced ethically and mindfully, hold the means to herald positive development in the lives of its creators (our artisans) and consumers – and to change the widely held belief that to make (mass) interests businesses need to exploit, dehumanise and coerce their makers or come at the cost of their integrity.

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ON SWITCHING TO A MENSTRUAL CUP

Menstrual products are one of the intermediary (re)sources through which activists and brands are educating us on the wide ranging impact of our choices and the alternatives that the market now offers to us. At IKKIVI, we partnered with ‘Hiccup’ to help share their message of making menstrual cups the norm for all menstruators. We spoke with Meenal Velani, Founder of the menstrual cup brand ‘Hiccup’, about why she started the enterprise, and about the scope of impact that our everyday choices can have on intersecting problems.

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Colorism in India

The fact that ‘color’ remains relevant for advertising agencies to influence sales – whether in their branding, in the chemicals utilized, in their story-telling, or in them all – has reinforced misconceptions and distortions of, what should have been, an authentic self-concept amongst consumers (and non-consumers).

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with Small Businesses after Covid-19

Having impacted all businesses and commercial undertakings profoundly, the economic deceleration – and in many instances, closure – that has extended with the onset of nationwide lockdowns has had an especially exaggerated effect on small businesses. At IKKIVI Zine, we spoke with a few small business owners from India on the state of commerce, their individual experiences and the business reorganisations apprehended by them.

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With Fatimah Asghar

The cultural and individual insights, of both makers and viewers, in works of art continually reveal to us the range of possibilities – of form and detail – that lie inherent in each art form. At IKKIVI, we had the occasion to speak with Fatimah Asghar on the various emotional, artistic, and intellectual processes and experiences that (can) underlay works of art.

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Finding The Art in The Everyday

“My art is that of storytelling, of creating beautiful images with a voice and intimate narratives; an art that I thought came with certain requirements of props and equipment skill, but the lockdown changed all of that.” - Caroline Joseph

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The Ambivalence of Fashion

At one end, fashion functions as a medium of creativity, imagination, art, beauty, and expression. At the other end, unconscious practices associated with its pursuit (have) give(n) rise to a myriad of environmental, socio-economic and psychological issues.

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With Karuna Ezara Parikh

Encompassing multiple perspectives and forms, writing has been a prime ideal through which to explore the human condition in all of its complexity, and simplicity. Reflecting on the profundity of language and the power of writing, we at IKKIVI had the pleasure of speaking with Karuna Ezara Parikh on the influence of books in her early life, their lasting impact on her present work and approach to writing, her creative process(es), as well as her upcoming book ‘The Heart Asks Pleasure First.’

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A Revolution of ‘Self’ and ‘Consciousness’

The objective of a fashion revolution is not only to have designers, industrialists or consumers adopt sustainable and egalitarian practices at the systemic level, but to cause a shift, a revolution, in ‘consciousness’, and consequently, of ‘self’ itself, at the broadest individual level.

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The Paradox of Isolation

Our present conditions have been lending insights into this paradox, where things have taken an inverse relation to each other – attributes through which we have often believed we connect or are connected, we are now separated from, and those through which we have often thought we are separate, we are now connected by.

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IKKIVI DIALOGUES Edition One

Slow living is about being fully present through every minute of your day. It is about making the choice to live the life that you would want to lead.

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On Ageing

In a world that worships unattainable perfection of retouched images and toxic ageist words, it has become a norm for women to be made to feel insecure about the first strand of grey and the first wrinkle. Signs of growing older are often admonished as a step backward rather than forward. Through IKKIVI Zine we wish to change that. We see ageing as a process of becoming more of ourselves, being better equipped to deal with the world and believing in ‘It is never too late to begin.’ We chatted with six inspiring women who took us through their journeys of growing older and left us with the wisdom of their luscious greys.

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In Colombo

On our travel to Sri Lanka for the IKKIVI launch at The Design Collective in Colombo, we had the opportunity to spend time with some of the brightest and most beautiful minds in the city. Spending time with them and getting to know their stories was an inspiring part of our trip to this beautiful country. Read along to get to know these women leading the way.

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On Sustainability

A letter from IKKIVI that takes our ZINE visitors into the thought process and inspiration behind starting our online magazine.

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Take me to the Sea

Circular adj. "Moving or Occurring in a cycle."

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Code Green

Code Green, explores sustainability and the environment in light of the UN’s recent moves to tackle problems in the fashion industry. The essay tackles the writer’s thoughts of what it means to be in this era of transformation, in an industry finally veering its focus towards responsibility, mindfulness and change.

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On Slow Living

Often we feel paralysed by the state of the world. The weight of the damage can make one believe that their actions can never make a lasting impact. At such moments we turn to our friends to inspire us to keep going no matter how small a deed or how tiny a step. We spoke to five inspiring women who have made these acts a part of their lives in small and big ways.

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ETHICAL THREADS

"Can clothes emote? Can clothes really tell stories?"

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