The gifting season is here and celebrations and festivities have taken a new form and shape. It’s time we wrap the year thoughtfully and choose conscious gifts for our loved ones.
Gifting is a primary aspect of our Indian psyche! However, a much-needed pause for most of us to reflect on our lives, our impact on the environment and the eco-system cannot be dismissed. Sustainability needs to become one of the core principles for us to see even the slightest of the future, we may have envisioned.
Creating awareness about sustainable ways and methods of life, labels and brands that make our daily products through ethical and sustainable manners need to be encouraged. Giant brands like Gucci and Bentley are now working towards being complete carbon neutral in the coming years and help the sustainability initiative. Considering the high dynamics of the industry and the immerging socio-environmental issues, sustainability is still considered to be a rich man’s territory; after all, handcraft demands the very reason machines came into existence – time.
House of Three
As we gear up to embrace the most eventful time, responsible gifting ideas are taking the centre stage. Here’s our festive gifting guide with a twist!
Mindful Fashion:
House of Three is a Bangalore based brand that makes fashion a less conflicted industry. The brand’s latest collection Kalgi embodies the true sense of beauty.
“A certain section of people have indeed become more mindful holistically. However, the numbers are still really small for it to make any substantial impact on minimizing our collective carbon footprint. I would have imagined that a lot more people would have turned to more sustainable ways of living, inclusive of what we eat, how we consume, how we commute and travel, what we wear and where and how we live, considering that a lot of people got in touch again with the basics. Also with nature, where we had to self-sustain throughout the lockdown by ourselves.”, said Sounak Sen Barat, co-founder and Design Director at House of Three.
Sustainability needs to be a lifestyle than a trend and the pandemic has somehow been a catalyst to the transition from fast fashion to slow and mindful fashion. As a beautiful embroidered chikankari kurta would last you way longer than a cheaply made dress from a fast- fashion brand, upcycling is another largely seen trend.
If you want to modernize for the upcoming parties, Swatee Singh’s first sustainable collection ‘IBERIS’ can be a treasure. The Delhi based designer believes that sustainability practises is not only environmentally beneficial but also employs farmers, artisans and weavers. With every piece having a personal touch and a one-of-a-kind piece makes the garments all the more special and worth it! The collection is a dreamy loungewear collection that uses organic cotton, intertwined with pastel colours that stand out such as teal green and ivory.
Experimenting with fusion wear the designer advises, “Oversized shirts with embroidered/brocade skirts. Draped sarees with crop tops or pants. Mix and match make it easier to reuse and adds shelf life to any piece of garment.”
Beauty With A Cause:
The year has made us give our skin some great care, be it challenges or self-indulging sessions and festivals call for some extra TLC. Sustainability have been a major development in the beauty be it the rise of Ayurvedic and Korean skincare or the use of natural products in the daily regime.
Brands have now launched sustainable and vegan beauty products that could help you transform and explore the beauty of makeup. The MyGlamm Limited Edition Clean Beauty is a recent launch that is vegan, cruelty-free and contains no parabens, formaldehyde and more.
“I believe that the consumers of today are savvy enough to know that they should be demanding more from their products. The rise of ingredient-conscious beauty means that consumers can now expertly decipher labels to know which products are genuinely good for them,” said Vasundhara Patni founder of beauty brand Kiro, a beauty brand that brings products that are both produced and packaged sustainably.
Their gifting includes a beautiful upcycled rubber tyre pouch made out of old used tyres which can be used for storing your makeup to accessories to electricals – thus a great gifting option this festive season.
Did Someone Say Food?
Food is an inseparable part of our culture and festivities – you just can’t do without it! But with these extraordinary circumstances that we are facing, things have to be updated and innovated. “Keeping up with the current normal, celebrations have been a standstill for all of us, but yet at Cococart, we do not think that festivities should miss out the delicacies that we wait for the whole year. We have simply adapted to this change by offering the convenience of gifting solutions online” said Karan Ahuja, Co-CEO of Cococart India.
While the presentation is a prominent aspect of gifting, the amount of plastic and other non-degradable used for the packaging is a cause of concern. The overuse of plastic is not only detrimental to our environment but also to our health. A simple solution to this is switching over biodegradable packaging like the Coco Conscious initiative. A Cococart green initiative that has curated an extensive collection of chocolates and beverages have woven sustainable practices into the products.
This line of sustainable products includes the Dimello Coffee Capsules, which are about 40% cheaper than Nespresso and biodegradable – thus a great gifting option! The Estoile Trays from Cococart are curated beribboned hamper trays. The Opulence Box and the Godiva Estoile have a supreme royal aesthetic and will definitely earn you compliments.
While things are changing around the world, let’s change somethings for good and help our planet be a better place to live!
Lead Image Credits: Cococart India
