Slow-Fashion Brand Jiwya Elevates Indian Artistry with Plant-Based Fashion

Jiwya is a pioneer in artisanal and plant-based luxury clothing, marrying heritage arts with one-of-a-kind designs.

Founded by textile scientists Aishwarya Lahariya and Adhiraj Shinde in 2023, Jiwya (pronounced giv-yuh) was constructed on four pillars. The first promises to never use animals, plastics or synthetic chemicals, with every raw material, color and embellishment purely plant-based. The second establishes that each piece is designed to be an heirloom, involving at least two art forms from India. The third pillar ensures each of those heirloom pieces are one-of-a-kind in an attempt to establish plant-based couture. Lastly, Jiwya’s production is zero-waste, zero-discharge and handmade. At the end of the garment’s useful life, the Re:Jiwya program takes back pieces to be upcycled or composted.

“It’s not just the artisan made the clothes and we’re selling them,” Lahariya told Sourcing Journal. “We’re amalgamating different fabrics, designing it and then converting it into a garment.”

Though the slow fashion brand didn’t officially debut until last year, Lahariya and Shinde’s journey began in July 2022. The textile scientists and life partners packed up their home in South Carolina to move to India to launch the brand. The two spent the next few months planning what would be called “The Grand Indian Textile Tour”—a bootstrapped, six-month journey spanning nearly 12,000 miles, exploring over 200 cities in 19 different Indian states that allowed them to meet over 150 textile artisans.

First, they toured northwestern India, where they met more than 39 textile artisans, followed by a sojourn to southern India, where they conducted 33 textile artist meetings. They subsequently covered central and eastern India and met 36 artisans, while the final phase was mostly virtual.

“Most [artisans] were very happy to connect with someone from the field of textiles because it’s not every day that they encounter somebody who understands how a loom works or how much effort it takes—we could sense they were putting their heart into explaining their processes to us,” Lahariya said.

And some of the artisans shared the sentiment of wanting to create a plant-based supply chain. “These are people whose families have worked for four or five generations—some of them as high as nine generations—and they had to resort to using synthetic colors and polyester because people aren’t valuing [their art] very much and just wanted cheaper options,” she added. “Nobody understands the value of hand.”

For Shinde, the tour was a sobering experience.

“It was really humbling for us to meet some of these people who are superstars in their community,” he said. “It’s incredible how intricate and beautiful their art is, but they haven’t been able to market themselves or give themselves the platform they deserve. So when we told them our plan, they were so excited to be valued.”

It was then that the North Carolina State University’s Wilson College of Textiles alums started laying the groundwork to “turn a new leaf” in luxury. They compiled all their learnings to solidify a plant-based supply chain, teach themselves design, establish production and operations as well as quality management to make wearable arts. Derived from the Sanskrit word “Jeev” (meaning life, soul, spirit), Jiwya was “born with age-old artistic wisdom meeting a new promise of compassion.”

“Back when we were both students, we always used to talk about this idea of how impactful it would be to work with Indian artisans—and we’ve all heard of them, but they don’t really have a face, they don’t really have a name of their own,” Shinde said. “That was always an idea lingering at the back of our minds. And, being the textile scientists that we are, we knew how polluting the textile industry was and we really thought of amalgamating these two ideas: having a purely plant-based supply chain but, at the same time, using the heritage arts of India.”

Jiwya focuses primarily on four kinds of art: hand weaving, hand block printing, hand embroidery and hand painting. The founders developed a multi-step creation process for their range of products. First, an artisan creates the base for a garment; if their art is weaving, they would handweave it in their signature style. If their art is hand embroidery, Jiwya will send some weave from Artisan A for Artisan B to embroider per Lahariya’s instructions. If another art form is incorporated, it would then go to another practitioner.

The final piece is ultimately designed in-house as a joint effort between Lahariya and artisans involved; any given piece can be woven in eastern India and have embroidery from western India and feature embellishments done in the southern region.

“By default, each piece becomes a powerhouse of multiple heritage arts combined into one design,” Lahariya explained. Artisans send their art in fabric form and final products are designed and manufactured in-house in bespoke designs. 

And, as Shinde said, it’s a “pretty complex supply chain operation” at first glance.

“But when we went to these artisans, we realized that truly empowering them would mean for us to let them work at the place where they’re staying, because otherwise, you would say, ‘Oh, why not get all these artisans under one roof in Nasik and just have them make their art,’” he said. “But their livelihoods and their families depend on what they’re making and they can’t really move—they don’t have the option to move across state boundaries—so what we do instead is we send the material to them and we make it easy for them to prepare their art in the ecosystem in the environment they’ve been in for generations.”

Jiwya’s website launched with a closed group last December with the goal of gaining critical feedback. But it still hasn’t generated sales—yet. While Jiwya was building out its visual online identity, it did have two physical (and shoppable) exhibits that did exceptionally well.

“Our target audience would be someone who is aware of sustainable fashion, who is conscious about buying clothing that’s right for the environment, who has the buying power because sustainable fashion has price point to it,” Shinde said. “And then also an eye for artistic clothing. Because what we do is Indian artisanal handmade excellence, so people need to have an artistic eye.”