Luxury Fashion Brand Looms of Ladakh Symbolises Conscious Fashion

Lalit Shastri, Editor, Looms of Ladakh Newsletter

The whole world is geared towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals while the fashion industry has already recognized its importance and have started taking action to maintain balance between social, economic and environmental sustainability.

When the whole world is in the process or is geared to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity, the fashion industry has started recognising that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and that development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability.

It is noteworthy that more and more among those leading and giving direction to the fashion industry, besides the discerning and better informed of the masses have started talking of “Apparel and Sustainability” and “Conscious Fashion”.

The Conscious Fashion Campaign, an initiative of the Fashion Impact Fund in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the PVBLIC Foundation, highlighted ten women-led organizations advancing fashion industry change in a collective billboard campaign in February 2022 during New York Fashion Week.

The campaign amplified the visibility and helped increase the media representation of women entrepreneurs leading the fashion sector towards a responsible future.

Abhilasha Bahuguna, co-founder of Looms of Ladakh is one of the ten women entrepreneurs showcased by the Conscious Fashion campaign during New York Fashion Week 2022 for the leading role she is playing in shaping the fashion industry and society with innovative solutions.

Along with Abhilasha Bahuguna, the recipients of the first annual Conscious Fashion Campaign are Ayesha Barenblat, founder and chief executive officer, of Remake; Stephanie Benedetto, co-founder, and CEO, Queen of Raw; Mariama Camara, founder, and CEO, Mariama Fashion Production; Hilary Jochmans, founder, PoliticallyInFashion; Anyango Mpinga, founder, Free As A Human Foundation; Ngozi Okaro, executive director, Custom Collaborative; Cyndi Rhoades, founder, Worn Again Technologies; Jessica Schreiber, founder, and CEO, Fabscrap; and Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro, cofounders, Fashion Revolution.

The Conscious Fashion Campaign has described these entrepreneurs as agents of change working for the cause of the vulnerable and marginalized populations “harmed by the unsustainable practices of the fashion sector. It is imperative to champion their leadership and create a diverse media landscape as they shape the industry and communities with innovative solutions.”

Conscious Fashion Campaign: New York 2021 was the first edition of the program and received over 100 applications from 25 countries.

Looms of Ladakh is a luxury fashion brand. Abhilasha Bahuguna, co-founder and chief strategist has built the Looms of Ladakh Women’s Cooperative from scratch. She has taken the challenge rooted in the biased belief that rural women will not be able to own and run a fashion brand by involving herself in the journey of hundreds of women of Ladakh.

In Abhilasha’s own words: “it was very important for Looms of Ladakh to contemplate on its brand values and put it down in the form of a brand book. So that when the founders and the initial grassroots women leaders exit, manufacturing is carried out not only for profits. We are trying to ensure that Data optimization, which is currently focused on the product mix, continues to be followed. The cooperative seeks to ensure that optimum balance in the region’s herd sizes of pashmina, yak, and sheep is factored into its product range as disturbances to such balance have proven to have adverse ecological consequences.”

Abhilasha has tried to inculcate among the rural women, ethos, and ideals that were somewhat unfamiliar. At the same time, she has made it a point to keep “the core values true to their cultural and environmental heritage.”

Looms of Ladakh is a brand that -

• Balances between value-driven social entrepreneurship and world-class design
• Redefines stakeholders’ position and ownership in fashion
• Is the future of luxury — committed to creating ethical and sustainable products
• Represents true luxury — When you buy from Looms of Ladakh, you own a piece with a powerful story woven into it
• Is rooted in socio-cultural heritage, and strives to preserve and reimagine heritage arts and honor the culture of a community
• Is an excellent illustration of the potential of “Made in India”
• Is empowering, inclusive, and sustainable development

The brand positioning for Looms of Ladakh is essentially that of design-led luxury underpinned by a strong story and set of values. Looms of Ladakh is a farm-to-fashion sustainable, luxury, artisan-owned brand, at the intersection of design and heritage from Ladakh. It aims to provide a blueprint for the ecological and ethical challenges faced by the global fashion industry.

The USP of Looms of Ladakh rests on -

Luxury- Exquisite design meets handmade heritage arts. Each piece is numbered and unique.

Values — The brand has created a model of ownership that emphasizes ethics and upliftment and supports a Ladakhi community and its women via employment generation and leadership skills training. Women of the community and their empowerment are at the center of its reason for existence.

Materials — A key point of focus should be on original and high-quality material and the three exclusive natural fibers that Looms of Ladakh works with — Pashmina, Yak, and Bactrian Camel Wool.

Transparency-One of the key conversations in the global fashion world, outside of ethics and sustainability, is about transparency. By acknowledging artisans and weavers by name alongside the designer and by giving as much information as possible about the product being produced and sold.

Looms of Ladakh is setting standards and plugging into this vital global narrative. Looms of Ladakh is not a development NGO. It is a social experiment and a movement to work on what could be the solution to the woes of the Indian handloom textile clusters. It is an autonomous, and democratic global brand that believes in and follows the practice of profit sharing between the Designer and the Artisan clusters. It is neither an NGO nor a Government Cooperative. Skill development is one of its important agendas, unlike most other brands. Also, it is not just a fashion brand or manufacturing factory being run with a profit motive. It is a design house. It is the future of luxury. It is a pioneering cooperative luxury brand.

Looms of Ladakh is teamwork and producer-owned. Few of its elected women have become leaders and efficient managers. Under the rules, they have to face elections every three years. They will have to take the brand ahead taking the mantle of leadership by rotation. In this way, all members of the organization are in a position to perform the role of leaders.

After the first election was conducted under one roof in May 2017, the members themselves asked for the second election in August/ September 2020 during the pandemic. This election was originally scheduled to be held in May but was postponed due to COVID lockdown.

The story of Looms of Ladakh began in 2015 when Prasanna Ramaswamy, IAS, the then Deputy Commissioner of Leh, came across a self-help group of women in the remote and troubled Chumur village during one of his routine tours. The group displayed their collection of hand-made woolen products hoping to make a modest sale.

Their enterprising spirit in such difficult terrain inspired him to seek a way to help them further their work and earn a respectable and sustainable income from their traditional economic activity.

Separately in 2013, Abhilasha had become aware of the dwindling interest of Pashmina artisans in Kashmir despite Pashmina being the forebear of a highly profitable global Cashmere industry. The seed to help the people, rearing and crafting these timeless objects of luxury, earn a fairer price in the global marketplace for their hard work, was planted in her head. Inspired by the legendary Amul story, Abhilasha felt, the only way they could do that was if they banded together the rural women and ensured they had greater ownership in the industry, as active participants in the craft as well as its business, rather than being valued only for their labour.

In 2017, Abhilasha and Prasanna — the husband-wife duo — founded Looms of Ladakh together, combining their past experiences and vision to create a sustainable, democratic institution within the nascent handloom and handicraft industry of Ladakh. The international dream for a homegrown, conscious luxury brand, owned by the herders and artisans, only came about in the subsequent year. Abhilasha recounts how during her personal encounter with Ermenegildo Zegna in Ahmedabad, she was inspired by his family’s story of starting from humble beginnings to creating a luxury apparel empire, and more importantly resonated with their brand values that never solely focused on personal gains but also on ways to actively engage a whole community of stakeholders to benefit and uplift themselves from the enterprise.

With their mission and vision finally in sync with one another, Looms of Ladakh has been driven to realize the goal by empowering the local women herders and artisans of Ladakh through advanced skill development and capacity building in spinning uniform count yarn, natural dyeing, advanced weaving and industrial tailoring.

Besides the traditional looms, the organization is continuously incorporating state-of-the-art machinery and equipment, and also there is a centralized quality control atelier and yarn bank backed by the best production, raw material stock, and finished stock management. For long-term sustainability of the brand as well as the region, the brand has now diversified from Pashmina to include other animal fibers of Ladakh — sheep wool and the rarer yak and Bactrian camel hair, thereby striking a balance between ecology, culture, and economy. Importantly, care is taken and animals are not harmed in any way in the hair collection process.

What is most significant is that Looms of Ladakh is a producer-owned global luxurious fashion brand. When you buy any product from them the profit goes straight to the rural women who are not only in the workforce but are running the show. They are not working behind the scene — they are leading from the front to ensure the sustainability and success of their brand in the world of fashion. They are contributing to India’s “Vocal for Local” initiative especially set in motion by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by promoting Indian products globally. Don’t forget, when you buy our product, you make a herder-artisan’s belief stronger.

“We are honored to support the showcase of these trailblazing women who are changing the face of fashion. Our Conscious Fashion Campaign: New York partnership illustrates the important role of media in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and its ability to empower the diverse voices of women social entrepreneurs transforming fashion.” — Sergio Fernández de Córdova, executive chairman of the PVBLIC Foundation

-Lalit Shastri, Editor Looms of Ladakh Newsletter and Editor-in-Chief Newsroom24x7, is a seasoned journalist, conservationist, wildlife film maker and author.