Why waste is the way forward

Changing the narrative around the culture of disposability

By 2050 landfills are estimated to have over 150 million tonnes of clothing waste if we continue on the current trajectory of production and consumption. In this environment, young designers and labels are looking to create from waste and resources which already exist. At IKKIVI Zine, 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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Where and how did your journey with fashion and waste start?

I think I’ve always liked the idea of clothes and fashion in general, even when I was a kid. Coming back from Nottingham after graduation, my dad offered to start a denim brand from one of his trading stock lots lying in his factory and I took that up. We ran a mass market denim wear brand for about 4 years supplying to major multinational retailers like Walmart and ITC till about 2017, right around the time when demonetisation hit and the conversation around fashion industry’s implications towards climate change & global warming started coming to the fore, especially in the Indian subcontinent. Although we were using seconds and discarded fabric lots even back then, we were still guilty of contributing to the problem at large. Post which I shut that arm down and focused on building an individual custom clothing company, with the last mile fabric remnants taken from big/small retailers and even individuals who used to sell on barrows. This is where the groundwork in my brain actually started taking shape towards imagining an overarching fashion company (and subsequently the whole industry) that runs entirely on everything considered as ‘waste.’ After a lot of research, trial and errors, failed investments – I finally launched Urban Darzi, as we know it, towards the end of 2020 with the ideology of creating a circular economy, where waste is looked upon as a valuable resource/raw material and used to create everyday lifestyle products, and where a closed loop system is created to have that initial set of waste coming back to the ecosystem till it is down to the last shreds and eventually recycled into newer material.

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You mention that you use ‘jugaad’ as a philosophy to repurpose all that you find laying in dumps. Could you tell us a little about how and where this philosophy finds expression in your production process?

The idea of jugaad is one we, as Indians, know very well. It is seeped into our systems from early childhood by our mothers and society at large, on how to make use of everything and how to make everything work through jugaad. It’s in our vocabulary, in our understanding, in our day to day functioning. So when we say we use ‘jugaad’ as a philosophy to repurpose all that we find laying in dumps, we aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary, we are simply applying that idea, to make use of everything, into our design process and often re-imagining design in a non-conformist way. For example, we used single use plastic bags and food and consumer packaging waste, that we picked up from roadside dumps, and put it in between the lining of a jacket — which does pose an argument of microplastics going into water stream after washing — for which we put in our conscious design principles in place and make sure we are doing that on products that you can go on wearing without washing for months, such as a jacket – how often do you wash a jacket in winters? Another example, we worked with Khamir to upcycle single use plastics found on the streets into raw material, from which we made small holdalls and totes.

It’s not just using plastics, though. We recently did a collaboration with Urban Monkey where we made a sac cover from age-old fabric folders (the ones fabric suppliers send to manufacturers/retailers for sampling and no one seems to care about). We are working on an object’s line where we use the same jugaad ideology, to make decor pieces from all kinds of waste material that we can find on the streets/dumpyards/landfills.

Do some of the conscious values at Urban Darzi seep into your way of living? What does that look like in your everyday life?

Simple things, really. Generating as little waste as possible. Being conscious and mindful of your ways in life, not just from an environmental perspective, but as a human being overall. Being grounded. Being responsible for yourself, for the things around you and extending that thought process onto as many people as possible.

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A fundamental part of building a business is developing an aesthetic for your brand. How did you decide yours, and how did you know it was right with your ethos?

I’ve been a brand fanatic all my life. I love the idea of how a brand you look at, interact with, can impact your life in more ways than what you actively see and feel. When closing in on the aesthetic for Urban Darzi , I didn’t really set anything in stone other than the fact that it had to be completely different from the clutter we had at that time. A mix of raw, honest offbeat and transparent approach to the idea of fashion and clothes in general, was the cornerstone of it all. And who doesn’t like good visual design when they see it, so the editorials, the photography, the conversational aspect of the brand just blended in all naturally.

We often talk about waste from an environmental perspective. We’d like to know more about its artistic and visual aspects. What do you see and feel when you look at it? And what is your creative process like when designing from it?

To create from what the world seems to have discarded – is often where creative genius lies. That’s what I tell all the design team members. For me, it literally is a playground. And the best part, there is always a new variety/kind of waste to play with and figure out how to upcycle and make a new product from it. Like yesterday only I found a lot of iron mesh sheets at a construction site and I am already thinking about what and how to make something valuable and aesthetically cool out of it. Creative process? It’s just about making the best possible use of it in the most efficient and radical way possible.

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A new product’s value is considered to be much higher. And waste has somehow largely had a negative connotation attached to it. The frequent perceptions around it are that it is a re-utilized byproduct or fad to work with. Can designs made from waste come to have a similar value to fresh pieces? What have your experiences been with this in your practice?

We’ve been conditioned to believe this. It’s only a small section of the crowd today that has opened up to the idea of upcycled products and substituting them from a regular purchase in their everyday lives. Personally, I like to believe that products made from waste should actually have more value than a regular product, owing to the simple fact that the design process is much harder ( we can be at it all day to prove how) and takes much more creative thinking whereas the production is equally and painstakingly difficult in some cases. But it requires an overarching systemic change in the way people think and interact with products and their wants/needs in general; something that only collectively can be achieved with all stakeholders actively involved.

What are some of the ways in which we, as consumers, can use or connect with ‘waste’ – our personal waste and the waste that we generate, apart from recycling it?

I am no expert and am learning on the job everyday, but I believe it’s something as simple as being mindful of the waste you create. Seeing where and what you can put back to use, what you can avoid using. Seeing where and how you can collaborate with brands and give them the waste you collect for them to use it further in making new, circular products. Just simple, small things – repeated everyday, by everyone that will eventually account for a larger, societal change.

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Changing the Ways in Which we Work

Tracing New Trajectories in Fashion

Cultivating change and correcting large scale issues at the systemic level in the fashion industry is often thought to hold more power and potential to make a real difference in how the fashion system works. While this may be a truth true in its own right, we want to share with you how we’re inspired by our brand Em and Shi and their founder Mansi Bhatia about the qualitative change working differently and more mindfully can bring to a brand’s artisans, people and the environment – making change just as potent at the micro level as at the macro.

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What does a fashion revolution mean for you? What are the ways in which it has taken shape through your brand?

For us, the revolution would kind of mean in the smaller steps because, if you talk about things at large or if we really require things to change, they kind of have to change at a much more macro level, such as in terms of regulations and certifications. For us at Em and Shi, what it means is to do the best for everyone. To create our processes in a way where it is the most sustainable, and by sustainable I mean, it’s good for the people who are working for us, it’s good for the people who are gonna be wearing the garment, it’s good for everyone involved at every stage. Often when we try to achieve that sort of perfection in terms of what we’re trying to do. It’s like, if today I was supposed to shut everybody who’s working in fast fashion, we would have so many unemployed people and they would in turn, go somewhere else, you know? So I feel like a revolution kind of has to come from smaller steps. And what we do is to kind of make our processes easier on everybody, including the environment and the people whom we can take care of on our level.

I think I learnt that only because when I started, I came in with this whole revolutionary mindset to “do this and do that.” And what I found is that most of it is not possible because either it would be beyond our means as a growing business or it wouldn’t make sense for the people who are working for you. So when we came in, we kind of wanted this sort of approach where everything is super systematic, but what I’ve realized and found helpful is that we mold our structure according to the people that are working for our brand – to kind of change what we are doing to suit them more.

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Does it feel like it has made a difference for your artisans and team, and for the brand?

I believe so, yes, because we still have the same people that started working with us from the beginning. Our pattern making hasn’t changed at all. Not even one of them has left or gone away. The fact that they haven’t felt like they need to step out and look for anything else, or even when they are trying to voice their voice, or if there’s anything that’s not working for our and their system – a few minor things obviously – they come to us and we accommodate that. And we really want to.

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Could you share with us an instance where molding your ways of working to suit the needs of the artisans hold an impact on their everyday life, and consequently, beyond?

In the villages and spaces, anywhere where the women are working, their kids are hanging out in that area and they are often playing there too. Sometimes if they feel like blocking a piece of cloth, they are blocking it as well. I can’t stop it. The children are by no means involved in the production process, but rarely if they want to do it for play, I don’t discourage it. At the same time that’s their community. That’s literally the name of their community. They’re “printers”. We too have gotten a little more comfortable with them doing it as a community and not having to hide the fact that their children also hang out at their workplace. This is the reality, and we don’t have to modify it to show a different picture to someone, for the very reason that this is the way they work and people need to understand it. It also helps them to have their children around as there’s no one to take care of or be with them at home, and they are too young to be alone.

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Creating Honest Change Through our Individual Paths

Why Being Who We Are Matters

Our sustainable brand Ahmev started out in 2019, unaware of the pandemic that was to strike us all. Finding their ground in the midst of uncountable challenges, they’ve carved a unique place for themselves as an ethical fashion brand in the last couple of years. We, at IKKIVI, spoke with co-founders Kanchan Sharma and Manish Garg 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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What does a fashion revolution mean to you?

Kanchan: The fashion industry has played a major role in impacting the environment. In the world of fashion, everyone has done their part – they’ve shown the different meanings and definitions of sustainability and slow fashion. We have too. We recycle and make different things from scraps as well as waste material. However, an important part of what a fashion revolution means to me is showcasing Indian heritage and supporting different artisans by being personally involved in each part of the process. Whenever I create a collection, I personally involve myself by connecting deeply with the inspiration of every collection, working with organic fabrics, supporting women and karigars, and amalgamating modern and Indian sensibilities together. This makes a big difference for us, and being able to now have an international presence is a milestone for us. We only aim to go upward and impact more lives through our work.

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What is a challenge that you see conscious fashion brands are likely to experience over the next decade?

Kanchan: People have attached sustainability with restrictions too. Nearly everyone requires certifications that are expensive and processes that are long, and are not clearly marked or very straightforward. We ourselves have had to change our terminologies and how we speak about a fabric because they are patented. An example of this is khadi.

Manish: For small businesses that are actually sustainable and committed to doing more, this presents quite an issue right now, as this is not a one off case for when you are establishing your brand’s name and its credibility. Whenever you want to apply for B2B or competitions, certifications have become a preliminary requirement. Each country has their own certifications, and they don’t always connect across the world as there aren’t always standardized guidelines. We think this is a large challenge that we expect conscious businesses will continue to face in the coming years and will have to find ways to overcome.

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How has the last year been for Ahmev as a brand?

Kanchan: We started Ahmev in 2019, and I was never a dreamer. Manish pushed me to pursue my dreams and showed me what I can do, and having worked on them consistently, we are glad that the last year has been a very successful one for us. I have enjoyed the process – working with the karigars and my business partners Manish and Anchal. Our karigars are growing, and with them, our brand. We’ve been partaking in the making of each garment ourselves, and being involved in the small everyday practices has been so therapeutic. That’s really been the beauty of our enterprise being a start up.

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The color white has been so important to you and to your brand Ahmev. How has your relationship with the color developed in these years, and how do you feel about adding other colors to your collections?

Kanchan: I still face the issue of people asking me to make the same design in a different color. Even Manish used to suggest that we should make our garments in other colors if there is a demand for it. But people have come to accept it, and so has our team, as this is our brand’s USP. I have never used color, and I have even been afraid of them. Over time, I have been coming to understand color a little more and really worked on it with this new collection. But white is still our trademark, and we want to see that forward.

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We’d love to know of some of the new things you’ve been doing at Ahmev

Kanchan: We’ve been doing more capsule collections as our customers enjoy them a lot. We’ve also been experimenting with menswear and doing trials on Manish!

Manish: I too have been exploring myself more through this, and hand painting some of our clothes with Anchal and Kanchan. In fact, I think I’m now becoming quicker at it than them!

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Fashion Revolution Week

How You Can Be Part of the Movement

The catastrophic collapse of the Rana Plaza Factory (24th April, 2013) in Bangladesh that killed over 1130 garment workers manufacturing clothing for several major fashion brands has revealed the vast complexities that have prevailed in the fashion system for over half a century, and has become a caveat for the fashion industry in the last few years to take measures towards the betterment of the working conditions of its people and within their factories. The industry’s complex value chain and systemic inequalities compel us all to be(come) vitally involved now in reforming its structural practices and building awareness about sustainable and ethical fashion – both as producers and consumers.

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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1. Do research on the brands you (want to) shop from and asking them questions

In order for us to be able to make conscious choices when shopping, it’s important to understand the processes of production and supply chain through which our garments or products are being made. Asking the brand questions about how the products were designed (whether they were handcrafted or mass produced), what kind of materials were used in their make (were they organic or include chemicals, vegan or utilized animal products/ residues), where they were manufactured (locally or globally), what kind of techniques their design processes included, the amount of waste generated, minimized and reutilized in their creation, the number of hours it takes to produce one product, the working conditions of their artisans and fair pay are some of the most direct and immediate ways in which we can inquire about what went into the making of their goods and services, and prevent us from being influenced by greenwashing. It’s okay if you may have previously purchased from a brand that you love without knowing about their methods of production, learning about them today is still valuable, as, in the long run it will help to make more informed decisions.

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2. Use the #whomademyclothes hashtag on social media

The #whomademyclothes hashtag has come about as a way to encourage people to ask brands where their clothes come from, who makes them, under what kind of working conditions and pay. One way you can partake in this is by taking a photo of your brand’s label during Fashion Revolution Week, and asking the brand #whomademyclothes? by sharing it and tagging the brand in your post on Instagram or Twitter. Many brands may not respond to the question or share only limited information about it, but brands that are genuinely aware and involved with the people who work with them are likely to show transparency of their processes. If a brand doesn’t respond, we encourage you to keep asking them and exercising your consumer rights.

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3. Learn about the impact of fast fashion

The social, economic and environmental effect of fast fashion is nearly irreversibly damaging for both our environment and people. More than 60% of clothes are made of synthetic materials derived from petrochemicals that do not decompose, but instead break down into smaller and smaller particles called microfibers and microplastics. Discarded clothing made of synthetic fibers now sits in landfills for 200 years. 97% of fast fashion is produced in developing countries with poor labor laws, human rights protections, forced and child labor under dangerous working conditions and abuse and unlivable wages. While knowing about such injustices and labyrinthine difficulties that surround the fashion system can feel discouraging and induce in us feelings of anger, guilt and shame, we hope that knowing the realities of these situations can strengthen your resolution to consume and create differently, and shift consciousness by learning about the workings of fast fashion more frequently.

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4. Understand the scope of slow fashion and climate consciousness

It can be difficult for brands to start out 100% sustainable in all their practices. But a label’s openness to evolve with time is a characteristic that is bringing on a lot of innovation and advancement in sustainable practices. Learning about how certain slow fashion brands are innovating and challenging themselves to do better with each collection can inspire our curiosity and build trust in participating and supporting a fashion revolution at the micro, everyday level. For example, our sustainable brand ‘Doodlage’ wields scrap waste and recycled materials, ‘SUI’ uses organic fabrics made from hemp, and ‘Mishe’ employs orange peel fabric to create novel designs – all of which are taking them – and us – a step further in understanding sustainable production and studying the influences of diverse materials on the natural world. At the same time, following the work of world leaders, climate activists, organizations and policy makers can educate us on the agency and power we hold at a collective level and how we can initiate action and change, as both individuals and businesses.

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5. Cultivate awareness with friends and family

Nothing makes being involved in creating change as fun as having trivia games, movie nights, book clubs and conversations with our loved ones! Coming together and thinking about the ways in which we can create a community around the subject, engage with it meaningfully, build a more conscious wardrobe and allow each other to learn a little more than we knew a day before goes a long way in making a real difference.

Sustainability and fashion revolution as a movement and practice, will always keep building and challenging us to be better – and with it, our methods. In our ideal to make fashion 100% sustainable and slow, together, as a community, we believe it is of key value to keep our eye on progress over perfection, and do as much as we can, when we can. Every step counts. Every decision makes a difference.

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CARVING a Path Toward a More Just Future

Carving a Path Toward a More Just Future

What We Can Do Today Amidst the Climate Crisis

Capitalism and colonialism underpin a large array of contemporary social issues, and now, as climate reformers and researchers are showing us, they 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.

_{Alexander Hoyles: shot for @greatergovanhill magazine by @alexander_hoyles}

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1. What were some of your early experiences in understanding climate injustice?

When I was 17, I encountered veganism for the first time. I quickly decided to go vegan after learning about animal, environmental and human rights abuses in the animal agriculture industry. From there, I began to develop a wider understanding of social justice issues and how they intersect with each other.

After developing this understanding for around a year I became an organizer for Glasgow’s Fridays For Future climate strikes in early 2019. I have been heavily involved in the climate justice movement since.

2. Could you tell us about some of the neighboring issues that climate (in)justice intersects with, and how?

All societal struggles are linked and have the same underlying causes: capitalism and colonialism. We need to abolish the systems of oppression that we currently exist under and create a fair world in which all life is cared for and protected equitably. To achieve climate justice, we must have justice for everyone. We need total liberation for humans, non-human animals and the planet.

Alice Aedy (instagram: @aliceaedy)

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3. What do you think are some of our most critical failures or challenges as a public in understanding the climate crisis?

Whilst the public, at least in the UK, generally care about climate change, most don’t understand the severity of the climate crisis and what we actually need to do to mitigate its effects. In my opinion, the climate justice movement should focus more on disseminating information about the climate crisis and social justice issues in an accessible way. There are so many people who are concerned about the climate crisis — they often just don’t have the resources and preparation they need to take collective action.

Generally, we need to focus so much more on onboarding people into social justice movements. As the climate crisis gets more and more out of control, we are seeing a substantial rise in the number of people willing to take action to safeguard the earth. Those who are experienced in climate justice organizing need to be ready to meet these people with the information and training they need to build confidence as an agent of change.

_{Will Gibson (Instagram: @williamgibsongla)}

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4. In the midst of so many tensions, how can we work for a sustainable and equitable future without losing hope?

Due to how unfathomably catastrophic and heartbreaking the climate crisis is, the default mindset in our campaigning is that we are going to lose. It certainly doesn’t come naturally to me to be hopeful; no wonder we struggle to imagine a better world when the society that we live in is so different from the one we want to see. I get out of bed every day having a deep understanding of the impending collapse of nature, and that can be really, really hard.

It affects every facet of my life.

But to feel hope, we don’t need to feel positive about the climate crisis and the situation we are in right now. I see hope as something I am actively building upon every day. I still struggle, but I actually find that by encouraging myself to feel hopeful about my own ability to create change, it took me out of a massive phase of burn out and gave me back my ability to act. This allowed me to actually envisage winning the Stop Cambo campaign and encourage others to do the same. Now, the Cambo oil field is paused indefinitely.

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5. What can we say to someone who doesn’t believe in climate change?

The climate crisis is an indisputable truth. To say that the climate crisis does not exist is to deny the experiences of millions who are already suffering extremely severe impacts. Pollution, extreme heat, and weather-related disasters are already claiming so many lives.

6. What are some ideas or concepts that you see people often get wrong about climate activism?

People often think that to be a climate activist, you have to be willing to do a small selection of roles: in my experience, people think of public speaking and getting arrested. In reality, the climate justice movement needs everyone. We need researchers, mental health professionals, drivers, artists, photographers and videographers, lawyers, action planners, spokespeople, media liaisons, and the list goes on. The point is, there are so many roles that go towards change-making. Everyone has something to add to the table.

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7. If there’s one thing that you think we can all start doing today to help protect the environment, what would that be?

In my opinion, the best thing someone can do to take action on climate change is get involved in climate campaigning.

Whilst individual change can be incredibly empowering, we need to go beyond this individualistic lens and consider collective action. We need to completely restructure society, and to do that, we need to work together on issues much more complex than just altering our daily consumption. Being in coalition with other people who care about the climate crisis and teaming up to fight for a specific aim is one of the most empowering things I have ever experienced!

8. What is something you’d like to communicate to our audience which you feel doesn’t get talked about enough?

I’d like to add a youth perspective to why the climate movement is dominated by young people. The youth are, I would say, inclined to be more ambitious about the fight for climate justice. I had a conversation with an MP during COP where they said to me and my friends that decarbonising the UK in time to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees was impossible. At first, hearing someone

who has been in the UK’s political system for decades tell us that decarbonisation was impossible made us feel extremely deflated. But in reflecting on this, I realized that as youth, we don’t have the privilege of believing that what we need to achieve is impossible. We are the ones who will live through that breakdown for the largest proportion of our lives. Our whole futures are at stake, compared to someone who has already lived over half their life in terms of life expectancy. Similarly, people in the most-affected areas do not have the privilege of believing that we do not have the power to achieve climate justice, because if that were the case, this means certain obliteration of their land and untold suffering for their people.

If you’d like to know more about Lauren’s work, you can visit her website.

. . . . . . |Alice Aedy (@aliceaedy)

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25 Books on Mindful Living

A Journeying Through Multiple Perspectives

There are so many wonderful books that can support us on our journey into living more mindfully each day. Here are 20 – some conceptual, some ethnographic, some tales, and some narratives – that we feel offer something unique to all of us:

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1. Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living (by Shauna Niequist)

A coming toward our core selves from the busyness of our lives, this is a book that can set us to rediscover who we want to be.

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2. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (by Don Miguel Ruiz)

A text that explicates how we can try to change our self-limiting perceptions that create discord and move toward new experiences of love, independence and joy.

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3. Loving-kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (by Sharon Salzberg)

This is a book that shows us how the Buddhist path of lovingkindness (metta in Pali) can be a path to liberate our heart and experience the many meanings of happiness.

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4. Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life (by Lilian Cheung and Thich Nhat Hanh)

Offering pragmatic practices, nutritional counsel and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh teach us how to gently adopt and integrate mindfulness in relation to our food habits in our everyday lives.

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5. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (by Jenny Odell)

An in-depth account of how different fields and personal experiences can express the limits and power of our attention, here Jenny Odell shares with us how we can work to leave behind the productivity-obsessed cultures we are all a part of, and come to a more collectively shared understanding of the ecosystems that are connected with us.

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6. Mindfulness : Connecting with the Real You (by Vinay Dabholkar)

A learning into our unconscious practices of self-deception to become more self-aware in the process and dissolve thoughts that are untrue or unproductive.

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7. Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More (by Courtney Carver)

A text that looks into how we can simplify our lives by allowing ourselves to focus on what’s important and how we can create space for it.

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8. Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World (by Franz Alt and The Dalai Lama)

A plea by The Dalai Lama for us to stand up for a renewed and more climate conscious world, and to let younger generations assert our rights to an optimistic future.

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9. Inward (by Yung Pueblo)

A collection of quotes, poetry and prose that traverse the journey to unconditional love and the wisdom of self knowledge.

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10. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (by Pico Iyer)

A look into the surprising and counterintuitive adventures of slowing down and sitting quietly in a room in an age of constant movement.

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11. The Practice of Not Thinking: A Guide to Mindful Living (by Ryunosuke Koike)

A mapping of how embracing simple Zen practices into our daily lives, can allow us to reconnect with our five senses and live in a more peaceful, optimistic way

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12. Mindful Eating On the Go: Practices for Eating with Awareness, Wherever You Are (by Jan Chozen Bays)

A pocket-sized book on some of the principles underlying mindful eating to understand the “nine aspects of hunger” that we feel, while going deeply into our needs and cravings without judgment to heal our relationship with food.

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13. Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication (by Oren Jay Sofer)

Thinking about how “what we say matters”, Oren Jay Sofer pens in this discursive book how observing our interpersonal relations can help us carve three fundamental skills for mindful communication: leading with presence; coming with care and interest; focusing on what matters.

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14. Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader (by Marc Lesser)

A thoughtful workbook for cultivating a more intuitive approach to mindfulness, Marc Lesser shares how and why he believes living from our heart shapes powerful leadership both individually and professionally.

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15. The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to Be Calm and Mindful in a Fast-Paced World (by Haemin Sunim)

An invitation to deepen mindfulness and joy in eight foundational areas of our lives.

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16. Destination Simple (by Brooke McAlary)

An elementary and succinct introduction to the features of slow living.

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17. Mindful Zen Habits: From Suffering to Happiness In 30 Days (by Marc Reklau and Manuel Villa)

A 30 day exercise guide for us to try to cultivate new habits that support us in giving room to our emotions, slow down our thoughts, and listen to our heart and body.

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18. Slowness (by Milan Kundera)

One of Milan Kundera’s earliest fictional works in French, this book is a thoughtful contemplation of contemporary life and the ways in which our innate connections with slowness, memory, desire and speed intersect and conflict with each other.

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19. Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (by James Gleick)

A humorous look at the unlikeness of our hurried world slowing down in the near future, this is a work that displays our responsibility to reflect on the meanings of ramifications of our lifestyles.

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20. Loving My Actual Life: An Experiment in Relishing What’s Right in Front of Me (by Alexandra Kuykendall)

An insight into the disillusionments of comparison and loving our ordinary, “actual” lives and selves.

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21. Zen: The Art of Simple Living (by Shunmyo Masuno)

Simple rituals designed to practice through the business of our modern world over a 100 days.

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22. The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn’t, and Get Stuff Done (by Kendra Adachi)

A conscious way of overcoming conventional narratives of what it means to live rightly and healthily, this is a text that inspires us to live by our personal definitions of well being and what matters to us, and lazily letting go of who we are not.

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23. 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week (by Tiffany Shlain)

Lessons on how rest and living 24/6 positively affects our productivity, feelings of connection, and cognitive presence.

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24. Mind Full to Mindful: Zen Wisdom From a Monk’s Bowl (by Om Swami)

An exposition on the art of happiness with Om Swami’s humor, stories and wisdom as he walks us from being mind full to mindful.

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25. Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life (by Marie Kondo)

A mindful process of simplifying and organizing our work life.

Are there any you’d add to our selection? We’d love to hear from you and know about the ones that you love and have made a difference to your experience in living consciously. We look forward to hearing from you at zine@ikkivi.com and our Instagram, where you can join our conversation as we share the books we have been reading every month.

CREDITS

21 Things We Learnt in 2021

The Gems That Guided Us In The Year That Was

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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1. Shadow work

A practice of healing and self-growth that has helped us unwrap the parts of ourselves that we unconsciously repress or hide from ourselves.

2. Communicating who we are through our art and design

Working on our typography, visual layout and experimenting with different niches to express to you what we are doing and where we are heading

3. Following a personalized routine

The rhythm of doing things with consistency in ways that suit us individually has been grounding and exciting

4. The effect that energy has on us

Understanding how our body and mind responds to another’s energy and the impact it has on us, as well as others, has brought forth powerful change in how we conduct ourselves with everyone.

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5. Balancing spending time with ourselves and socializing with our loved ones

It’s taken us quite a few months to nail this one and arrive at a place of peace and joy with it.

6. Including more healthy foods into our diet

Addition, subtraction; subtraction, addition has been the key for us.

7. Produce a podcast

We learnt how to prepare, record, edit and publish a successful podcast series from scratch and had so much fun in the process

8. Move from a place of personal authenticity

We’ve continually dedicated time to understanding ourselves more and be guided to follow what feels authentic to us

9. That we love listening to audio books, sometimes over reading

They make us feel like the speaker is personally involved in what they’re talking about and offer more ease with their work

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10. Stay calm and problem solve under stress

Keeping our head down and solving different challenges calmly in high crises situations has been a revelation

11. Open up with new people

A little uncomfortable to begin with, engaging with new people freely has shown itself to be a delight.

12. The power of repetition

Mindfully doing things over and over has taught us how capable we are of mastering skills

13. Slow work

Throughout the year we fine-tuned practices that would allow us to work slowly and have fun doing it.

14. Trying things outside our comfort zone can be both safe and fun

We made a whole list with this one and followed it to the end to notice that there’s so much we enjoy about the things we are often hesitant to try before.

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15. The value of filing and organizing our work documents

Simplifying, editing, cleaning, organizing, recategorizing, optimizing on a bi-weekly basis make things dramatically easy to navigate through

16. To practice interdependence

Asking for help as well as doing things collaboratively with others is as much a joy as doing everything independently.

17. To improvise or moving with spontaneity

Moving with our natural urges and creativity when they come up, even if they don’t coincide with our elaborately planned schedules.

18. To trust our driving skills more

Passing through the narrow roads of Bangalore everyday amidst the thickest traffic has given us more confidence in taking the wheel.

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19. Use a planner (more) effectively

Whatever the templates or prompts, we’ve seen that we first need to make our planner our own and give it our personality in order to make it work and have it offer us the results that it’s designed to.

20. Understanding that no matter how perfectly we try to do things, we will still make mistakes and errors

They aren’t always avoidable and we don’t have to penalize anyone to learn how to do things correctly

21. That rest inspires action

The most beautiful thing we learnt – timely rest sparks our creativity, willingness and desire to do things in a way that nothing else does.

Are there any things from our list that coincide with your own from 2021? If you still haven’t made one, we encourage you to go ahead and make it now for we wonder what sweet things you’ll remember and continue to do!

CREDITS

Creating Climate Impact

Disentangling Misconceptions around Climate Change and Action

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.

1. Where did your journey start? When did you first realize you wanted to work for climate justice?

When I was growing up in Los Angeles, I experienced the impacts of environmental racism directly. I remember a field trip when I was younger where we went to pick up trash in an affluent area and I couldn’t help but wonder, “why aren’t we going to places like where I live?”.

I knew that solving climate change couldn’t only be a conversation about science and technology, it had to include conversations on people, livelihoods, and the communities that are most impacted by colonialism and capitalism. Experiencing various systemic failures firsthand led me to pursue a path in environmentalism that was built with justice at its foundation, rather than as a secondary concern.

2. Could you tell us a little about ‘queerbrownvegan’.

Of course! I was interested in creative expression and education throughout college and after graduating helped start the online publication, Alluvia Mag. With the experience and confidence I picked up, I went on to start my own educational platform which is the Queer Brown Vegan page you see today!

When I first started my own platform I wanted to bring my full self to the table and speak to the intersecting dimensions of sustainability. To me, that meant intimately exploring the question, “who is Isaias Hernandez?”. My identity has shaped the experiences I’ve had, so I felt compelled to lean into that as a source of power. The name “Queer Brown Vegan” speaks to these intersections: I’m queer, Hispanic, and vegan, and my activism and education seeks to explore the intersectionality in environmental issues we see today. For a long time, I’ve felt overlooked in environmental spaces, and have even experienced derogatory comments from professors about things like my name being hard to pronounce. I wanted to provide environmental education that highlights issues not always talked about in classrooms and do so in an engaging and creative way. Starting and running Queer Brown Vegan has been fundamental to me finding my own voice in the environmental movement.

3. On your Instagram page you’ve written ‘(un/re) learning’ under your bio note. What are some of the things relating to climate change you have found yourself needing to (un/re) learn?

One of the first that comes to mind are the expectations we place on ourselves as well as the expectations others place on us. No one has to be a perfect environmentalist. As a content creator with over 100,000 followers on Instagram, I know I have a unique responsibility, but I’m still a human being. The environmental movement has its fair share of binary thinking and perfectionism, and I’ve seen how that impacts myself and other activists. It’s a recipe for burnout.

I’m constantly reflecting on my own values and individuality, and allowing myself the space to be imperfect while operating in exploitative systems. Unlearning perfectionism has been essential to supporting myself and maintaining my activism.

Another one is doomism. The climate crisis is already happening for communities around the world, but in the Global North, a popular media response has been to broadcast the doom and gloom. This gets more clicks, but has sparked a global mental health crisis, especially in young people. However, many communities don’t have the same privilege of shutting down and have to fight for their survival. I believe that bringing that same resilience and resistance into the climate movement, the same resilience found in the United States’ civil rights, women’s suffrage, and labor movements, is a far better alternative to doomism. TLDR: unlearning perfectionism and doomism, and (re)learning lessons from resistance movements and Indigenous cultures.

4. How can we understand the difference between ‘climate action’ and ‘climate justice’? Is there a salient difference between the two?

You can have climate action without climate justice. Climate action itself has become watered down and undermined by corporate influences. Most people want to take climate action, but the truth is that the term itself is nebulous. Is climate action buying a metal straw? Petitioning my local government? Having a plant-based diet? All of the above could be considered climate action, but climate justice narrows our focus. Climate justice asks us to examine how policies and practices disproportionately affect vulnerable communities and to replace those policies/practices with better ones. When we channel our climate action through the lens of climate justice, we end up with intersectional solutions and stronger outcomes than what quantifies climate action. It’s one thing to focus on our individual decisions and impacts, but climate justice asks us to go beyond and recognize that while we’re in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat.

5. There is so much information on climate change on multiple platforms. How can we know what data is reliable and what isn’t?

I think it’s worth noting the shift from climate denial to climate delay. World governments and multi-national corporations have all made statements on how they seek to approach sustainability (the problem is these are still mostly just statements and often fail to address unsustainable or exploitative systems, but that’s a different story). In some ways, we’ve beaten the war on outright climate denial, at least on a global scale.

Most people think our issue is if information is reliable or not, but our real issue is in how this information gets presented and who controls the narratives. We have reliable information, but we still need to turn toward our story-tellers and communicators that emphasize intersectionality, indigenous wisdom, resistance movements, and more. Very often information on climate change gets presented as definitive and disastrous, and this itself is dangerous as it often excludes the perspectives and interpretations that can lead to and empower systemic change.

6. Having been dedicated to climate activism, can you share an instance with us where you saw yourself being able to generate real, positive impact?

I’m extremely grateful for the following I have and the support I receive, because it enables me to support so many other amazing individuals and organizations. It’s hard to pick one, but I’d say that anytime I have the chance to work with environmental justice organizations, especially in my own community, I feel the most fulfilled. The quote “think global, act local” comes to mind because it summarizes a lot of the work I do and how I approach my work. There are so many efforts besides my own and I love when I’m able to help raise awareness and support the organizations and individuals making it happen.

7. What keeps your drive for activism strong?

Having my own platform helps! Being able to express myself authentically and in a way I can sustain is what makes all of this possible (as well as having a team behind me). Also, being among a community of change-makers and having friends in this space helps keep me inspired. I want to create a world where people don’t experience the same problems that I did, where people aren’t breathing and consuming poison because of where they live or their economic and racial identities. Lastly, I think resting is the real secret! I also take daily walks. Taking care of my physical, mental and spiritual health keeps me engaged in a sustainable way.

8. What is the one thing you’d like to communicate to our audience which you feel doesn’t get talked about enough?

There isn’t a set of requirements to being an environmentalist, there’s no check-box that you need to complete. It’s not even about solving climate change, because no one person can do that. Solving the climate crisis is about solving the broken systems that have led to it, and solving the broken systems (as an individual) means identifying what problem(s) you connect with and are uniquely equipped to solve. You’ll burn yourself out by doing work you can’t sustain. The world needs environmentalists that are problem-solvers and while it’s important to consider the big picture, this really means focusing on the problems you can solve.

Go beyond and use that individuality to find a collective movement, and I don’t just mean Greenpeace or Extinction Rebellion. Collective movements can look like engineering firms, farms, offices, really anywhere that has people connected by a shared belief and dedicated to solving a problem. If you look, you’ll see there are tens of thousands devoted to solving almost any problem you can think of (and if there isn’t one, then maybe you’re the lucky one to start it). We’re being asked to reimagine all the ways we live in and interact with the world and that’s not an easy task – be gentle toward yourself!

If you’d like to know about Isaias Hernandez’s work, you can visit his website.

CREDITS

Inviting Change in our Everyday Life

Learning to Connect Deeply with the Ephemeral

2021 was a year that carried a lot of change for me. I changed fields and left a discipline that was a part of me for over ten years, lost one of my professors – a mentor, who in no short terms, (has) made me who I am, and moved to a city I knew nothing about barring its tales of traffic. Acclimatizing to a new pace of life, both at work and at home, and moving with the complexities of Covid-19 as it surged in India, there was so much change afoot that on most days it felt that I didn’t have my feet on the ground.

To need to “adapt” to change is a concept I found strange, more so elusive and imposed, since I was but a child, for there was nothing I found that would ground me through its course – not even its own unchanging consistency. Being here at IKKIVI, my colleague and now dear friend, Ms. Esha’s exploratory nature made me realise how poignantly I dislike change. I believe I have always resented it, sometimes even in the moments where making changes or changing itself held a lot of goodness and meaning. No matter how much we may accept Remy’s profound truth from Ratatouille that “change is nature”, change feels harsh to me – not necessarily because it makes our days and journey unpredictable or discomforting, but due to the constant movement and little rest its unfolding can involve.

Contemplating the beauty, value and near necessity of a slow and mindful approach to life that underlies the foundation of our work over the last several months, has nudged me into reflecting on my relationship with change. I have had the fortune to meet the shadows of my ‘self’ and soak in confusions to ask some critical questions about the pains of change and the ways in which I want to, or more so need to live, to be in harmony with who I am (becoming). Stemming from my own predispositions, my pursuits in philosophy have largely kept me engaged in inquiring about the metaphysics of our existence, but never so much in the subjectivities of our experiences and needs. Unsurprisingly – yet, to my joy – 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. A minute play of language while it can seem to be in the beginning, 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?

In as much as change signifies an alteration, reorientation, remoulding, reworking modifying or modification, renewal, evolution, or any kind of difference to specific forms, I believe it can. Change requires time, and does not frequently transpire at the accelerated rate that contemporary or modern living can mistake us into believing. The inhumane velocity of action that many of us unwittingly experience and become subjected to in such a domain I suspect plays a significant role in deterring us from being able to feel or fuse with the naturalness of change. What I have been discovering now through my experience and examinations is my intrinsic attunement to slow(er) living, and that slowing down from a metropolitan pace of life does not soften the harshness of change but enables me (and I hope ‘us’) to see that there is inherent softness in change itself – that the slower I move, the more tempered, correct and truthful change can feel; that we may not need to “adapt” to change when we are able to feel its naturalness (as much as possible).

Inviting such change has meant to consciously allow myself to differ from the ways I (have) know(n) myself to be, and appreciate the differences and movements around me. In practice this has taken the shape of keeping with a few everyday rituals at home, cultivating slow work values, learning from colleagues and friends, steadily letting go of what feels inauthentic or hurried, practicing being comfortable with taking more time to do things, and carving an intention each morning. Being able to feel the naturalness of change has encouraged me to integrate with two (among many other) of its essential elements – genuinity and beauty – in a way that I always hoped for: to experience and perceive lesser loss and pronounced unity in its meetings. I’d like to ask you what about ‘change’ disturbs or disrupts for and in you; what, if at all, you’d like to invite through it and what you’d like for it to give to you; what you’d like for it to mean and what you’d like to feel in its presence. These questions are stepping stones that can hold a space and bind us with the fluidity of our being, making it safer and more enlivening for us to explore the world and our place in it – and I’d love to know what that place looks like for you 🙂

CREDITS

With Team IKKIVI

Conversations on Who We are Becoming Together

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.

NIVI MURTHY

1. Has this been your first time being with a small business? What about this experience has been distinctive for you?

Prior to IKKIVI, I had started a fashion data analytics platform to support designers with data to help them with the problem of overstock. We are now slowly integrating the ideas we had in the previous business with IKKIVI in order to further support the 50+ designers we have on board at IKKIVI. Building and growing a passionate team has been very rewarding and I am excited for all that we plan on doing together.

2. During the pandemic, we were all working from home for over a quarter of the year. In what ways did this change re-shape your style of working?

Working from home initially was a challenge for me along with the uncertainty of the situation we were all in. Other than the initial few weeks, I don’t think it really changed my style of working. With a family and a dog living in close quarters of each other it sometimes was a challenge to set boundaries between personal and professional time but as time progressed and we were expected to do it for longer I was able to get into some sort of a rhythm.

3. What is an advice you received about work ethic that has stayed with you?

Timeliness.

4. What do you love to do together with the team?

We’re all at different ages in our lives with different experiences and perspectives and I love having conversations with each one to understand how they think and where they’re coming from.

5. A personal value that informs your work at IKKIVI?

Kindness. A value that truly describes what we do at IKKIVI, encouraging kindness to the environment and its people. It is also a value that is part of the culture at IKKIVI, in interaction within our team and stakeholders.

6. The silliest person in the team, in your view?

Malini 🙂 Her personality and perspective never fails to amuse us all!

7. What are some skills or values you have learnt from each other that are now important to you?

The biggest learning I have had is to give ideas time, sit with it and then make a plan to achieve it. There always seems to be a million ideas but the key is to really focus on prioritizing, planning and executing to actually move forward.

8. Can you tell us about a project you are excited to work on over the next few months?

I am excited for us to start offline pop ups again in 2022! I am also thrilled with the response we’ve had with our Podcast on mindful living and excited to make a larger impact with it over the next months and years.

RHEA GUPTE

1. Has this been your first time being with a small business? What about this experience has been distinctive for you?

Over time I have worked with several different small businesses in varying capacities but IKKIVI is the one I have worked on for the longest duration (almost four years!) It has shown me the importance of long term commitment and the impact it can have in affecting change. When we began, slow fashion was something very few people knew of. With time, our audience has grown with us in numbers and well as in information, which allows us to delve deeper into addressing issues of consumerism and the systemic problems in the fashion industry.

2. During the pandemic, we were all working from home for over a quarter of the year. In what ways did this change re-shape your style of working?

Being a freelancer all my life, I have always worked from home, so it didn’t impact my work habits-wise. However, the political climate in India before and during the pandemic has been heartbreaking to deal with and taught me to fortify myself, get involved in things I could be a part of and trust the power of community.

3. What is an advice you received about work ethic that has stayed with you?

This is something I have cultivated on my own and swear by, be honest about deadlines and have clear, honest communication with the people you work with.

4. What do you love to do together with the team?

Since we put the team together during the pandemic, I have been staying in touch over video calls, which have already allowed me to get to know everybody a little bit. But, I’d love to meet everybody on the team in person in the near future.

5. A personal value that informs your work at IKKIVI?

Our commitment to re-imagining a future for fashion and consumption which is rooted in supporting small business, ethical practices and a mindful, reflective way of living.

6. The silliest person in the team, in your view?

I know Nivi the best in the team since we have worked together for so long, so I feel honoured to have developed a genuine friendship to the point that we are both extremely comfortable being silly in each other’s company.

7. What are some skills or values you have learnt from each other that are now important to you?

Having worked with a few different startups and in a bunch of team structures, I have learnt how to give productive and clear feedback, how to think of the growth of the people I work with and how to creatively problem solve and at times accept limitations that come with a small team.

8. Can you tell us about a project you are excited to work on over the next few months?

I am excited to put together our invitations and press packages for our upcoming pop ups, it is going to be very ‘IKKIVI’ in its essence, slow and mindful, and I hope people enjoy them as much as we are enjoying planning them.

VEDHIKA HV

1. Has this been your first time being with a small business? What about this experience has been distinctive for you?

I have worked with startups before but my experience with IKKIVI has been unparalleled. I love the environment and work ethic. I appreciate that we plan things well in advance and are able to be flexible with our schedule as long as our work gets done within the planned timelines. We are clear about our responsibilities and able to collaborate with ease.

2. During the pandemic, we were all working from home for over a quarter of the year. In what ways did this change re-shape your style of working?

Since I worked as a freelancer for a while before I joined IKKIVI, I was quite accustomed to the idea of working from home. I had a separate room, at home, as a dedicated work space which helped a lot. In fact, I had gotten so used to working from home that the idea of coming back to the office was terrifying and took me a while to figure out. Now that I have found my rhythm with it I enjoy working from the office and having my work and rest spaces be completely separate.

3. What is an advice you received about work ethic that has stayed with you?

A piece of advice that I received from my father has always stayed with me – He said that no amount of talent, skill or intelligence would matter if I couldn’t be a loyal, dedicated and reliable worker. People work with people they can trust so being honest would take me a long way and that has helped me along my journey.

4. What do you love to do together with the team?

Since it’s only been a few months of us coming together as a team it’s always fun to talk and get to know each other better . We share stories and our different perspectives on topics and we always end up having a good laugh.

5. A personal value that informs your work at IKKIVI?

Honesty. It is one of my core values and it informs almost all of my choices. I try my best to be true to myself and honest with the work that I do. The environment also plays a big part in helping me stay aligned with this value. My colleagues support my honest expression and I’m very grateful for it.

6. The silliest person in the team, in your view?

I’m afraid I might be the silliest one in the team!! But, if I had to pick another person it would be Esha. She has the funniest stories and the most bizarre experiences to share with us.

7. What are some skills or values you have learnt from each other that are now important to you?

There is so much that I am learning, consciously and subconsciously from everyone on the team but one thing that I’m actively learning and practicing is managing my time and organizing my tasks better. Other than that, I’m also learning not to dwell on things that don’t work out the way we envisioned them to. I’m able to move on more swiftly to making improvements or to testing out new ideas.

8. Can you tell us about a project you are excited to work on over the next few months?

We are approaching the new year with so many new ideas and truly, I am excited about all of them but if I had to pick one it would be the monthly shops that will be curated by different influencers on our website. I’m really excited to work with different creators and see what they put together!

ESHA VISHNOI

1. Has this been your first time being with a small business? What about this experience has been distinctive for you?

Yes, this is my first time working with a small business and I truly enjoy how inclusive the environment is. We have the freedom to ideate, tweak things based on our instincts, there is room to make mistakes and learn at every step while we move forward with the business.

2. During the pandemic, we were all working from home for over a quarter of the year. In what ways did this change re-shape your style of working?

It was my first time working from home and although work from home comes with its comfort and advantage, I really enjoy working in the office. There are innumerable miscellaneous tasks that get completed while we are in the office which adds a lot of value to the business overall and I feel this would not have been possible otherwise.

3. What is an advice you received about work ethic that has stayed with you?

One thing I’ve picked up myself by observing the people I look up to is, always communicating!! Communication goes a long way.

4. What do you love to do together with the team?

The first thing which comes to my mind, to my surprise, is our monthly meetings. I guess I love our meetings because we come together and help each other plan and organise our tasks. For me it’s fun to know how each one of us is so different with respect to the style of working but at the end our goals align perfectly.

5. A personal value that informs your work at IKKIVI?

Integrity.

6. The silliest person in the team, in your view?

Malini & Vedhika. :p I honestly don’t have a specific reason to support my answer because I just enjoy my time at work when I’m around these two. Just a small conversation lights up my mood and we always end up having a fun time together. 🙂

7. What are some skills or values you have learnt from each other that are now important to you?

One thing I’ve learned from everyone in the team is how to organize my work to have a good work – life balance. This is one thing I’ve always struggled with for the longest time but I feel I’m getting better by the day and I have no one to thank for it but my team.

8. Can you tell us about a project you are excited to work on over the next few months?

I am super excited about our Pop-Up!! This would be my first time handling an offline event which makes it even more special for me. We would love to see you guys at our Pop-Up so please do drop by and say Hi to us.

MALINI MATHUR

1. Has this been your first time being with a small business? What about this experience has been distinctive for you?

Yes, this is my first time working with a small business. Something that has been distinctive for me about this experience is working with a close knit team and multiple people on a single project and the collaborative ethos that we have here. I’ve mostly worked independently before, and I love being able to see the range of beautiful things we can create when working together.

2. During the pandemic, we were all working from home for over a quarter of the year. In what ways did this change re-shape your style of working?

I really struggled with time management, for months on end. A couple of weeks into working together, we all had to work from home. I was still trying to understand the nature of the work as well as know my colleagues a bit and everything felt a little scary as I didn’t know where to start. After rushing to meet timelines multiple times (and failing frequently) at the start, things (organically) began to synthesise and I was able to visualise how I can work in a way that feels enjoyable and cohesive for me. Over the course what I discovered (and am still fine tuning with each month) was that I love working with fluid schedules – so that I have my work charted out, but am not bound by any rigidity with it. I’m also really excited to see how this develops in the long run as we experiment with different verticals at IKKIVI!

3. What is an advice you received about work ethic that has stayed with you?

From my Sociology professor – “Don’t be in a hurry to ace anything. Commit to the process of learning each thing properly and spend your time exploring things you’re least likely to do.”

4. What do you love to do together with the team?

I feel that language is all I have (and am!), so I really love talking to them, about everything – work, our fears, our experiences, our peculiarities. And ofcourse, stealing food from each other’s lunch boxes!

5. A personal value that informs your work at IKKIVI?

I wouldn’t want to necessarily ‘claim’ it as a value, but I think sincerity – about projects that I love a little less than others, things that feel scary, some days that feel really exciting and some disorienting. I try to work with that flow and knowing, because that helps me build myself from a space of being human. And I honestly feel that it’s the primary attribute that is helping me grow and open up to doing new things.

6. The silliest person in the team, in your view?

Ms. Vedhika! She can be so witty even without trying. And I love how she can switch so smoothly between different kinds of conversations. Also her sweet laugh cracks us all up 🙂

7. What are some skills or values you have learnt from each other that are now important to you?

Over the months, I think, I’ve learnt different things from everyone in our team. But I’d describe them more as values than skills. I’m just listing them below because that’s how my mind works 🙂

Ms. Nivi – the value of progress (and completion) over perfection

Rhea – the importance of revision and discipline

Ms. Vedhika – honest dialogue about any conflict that may arise when working with each other

Ms. Esha – opening up to try new things, even at the risk of them feeling scary

8. Can you tell us about a project you are excited to work on over the next few months?

Our Podcast! We’ve been running it for half a year now, but the conversations we get to have with people are so valuable that I’m excited to see what we’re going to do in the coming months with it. Ohh, and the IKKIVI pop up that we are having in February.

Why waste is the way forward

Changing the narrative around the culture of disposability

CREDITS

Interviewer and Writer

MALINI MATHUR

Layout and Graphic Design

VEDHIKA HV

Images by

THE URBAN DARZI TEAM

Editor

RHEA GUPTE

IKKIVI Zine is a property of IKKIVI by Founder

NIVI MURTHY

Changing the Ways in Which we Work

Tracing New Trajectories in Fashion

CREDITS

Interviewer and Writer

Malini Mathur

Layout and Graphic Design

Vedhika HV

Images by

Mansi Bhatia (Em and Shi)

Editor

Rhea Gupte

IKKIVI Zine is a property of IKKIVI by Founder

Nivi Murthy

Creating Honest Change Through our Individual Paths

Why Being Who We Are Matters

CREDITS

Interviewer and Writer

Malini Mathur

Layout and Graphic Design

Vedhika HV

Images by

Kanchan Sharma (Ahmev)

Editor

Rhea Gupte

IKKIVI Zine is a property of IKKIVI by Founder

Nivi Murthy

Fashion Revolution Week

How You Can Be Part of the Movement

CREDITS

Writer

Malini Mathur

Layout and Graphic Design

Vedhika HV

Editor

Rhea Gupte

IKKIVI Zine is a property of IKKIVI by Founder

Nivi Murthy

Carving a Path Toward a More Just Future

What We Can Do Today Amidst the Climate Crisis

CREDITS

Words

Lauren MacDonald

Images

Alexander Hoyles, Will Gibson & Alice Aedy

Interview and Introduction

Malini Mathur

Layout and Graphic Design

Vedhika HV

Editor

Rhea Gupte

IKKIVI zine is a property of IKKIVI by Founder

Nivi Murthy

25 Books on Mindful Living

A Journeying Through Multiple Perspectives

CREDITS

Writer

Malini Mathur

Layout and Graphic Design

Vedhika HV

Editor

Rhea Gupte

IKKIVI zine is a property of IKKIVI by Founder

Nivi Murthy

21 Things We Learnt in 2021

The Gems That Guided Us In The Year That Was

CREDITS

Writer