pet bottles fishing nets and polythene bags may not be your typical idea of fashion but clothes made from trash are increasingly making an appearance on indian catwalks and in wardrobes as designers get innovative with sustainable alternativesthe trend towards sustainable slow fashion is the result of a growing awareness about how synthetic clothing is contributing to pollution globally more than 60 of clothes are made with synthetic fabrics such as polyester acrylic and nylon which shed thousands of microscopic fibres with each wash leaching these into the water supply and the oceans where they are ingested by marine lifethe silver lining to this mounting pile of fabric waste is that the consumer mindset has changed especially in the last five years says kriti tula whose zerowaste brand doodlage works with fabric waste from export factories to create patchwork clothes the millennial consumer is becoming more conscious of environmental problems adds tuladoodlage was a contender for indias first circular design challenge at the recent lakme fashion week which focused on brands working with materials upcycled from diverse sources of waste the shortlisted contestants presented mens shirts made from recycled plastic collected from goas beaches handbags and wallets made from recycled polythene bags accessories from old saris and clothes from discarded fabric wastethis week itc wills lifestyle announced it would make garments made from materials that are natural and fully biodegradable becoming the first mainstream indian apparel brand to go completely naturallast year designer madhu jain launched a new fabric bamboo silk ikat after 14 years of research choosing bamboo because it was biodegradable ecofriendly nontoxic and pocket friendly designer anita dongre has been working with fabrics made of wood pulpdelhibased designer amit aggarwal who combines plastic and industrial waste with heritage fabrics such as chanderi says customers want environmentally conscious clothing they understand the thought behind it and the amount of experimentation and designing that goes into creating our recycled pieces so much so that they stand as luxury products in their own right but have a conscience tooa growing number of international brands are now using recycled plastic adidas has partnered with environmental ngo parley for the oceans to create a line of sneakers from plastics collected from cleanups in the indian ocean in 2018 it sold five million pairs and plans to manufacture 11 million in 2019 swimwear company speedo and smaller indian brands such as the summer house and pani are producing swimsuits from econyl a fabric made from fishing nets and gear abandoned in oceanseven fastfashion brands like hm are highlighting innovative sustainable fabrics such as econyl in its annual conscious exclusive collections today 57 of the materials that hm group uses to make clothes are organic recycled or other sustainable materials says janne einola country manager hm our goal is to increase the share of sustainable materials every year such conscious collections by fast fashion brands can have a largescale impact if done right says tula of doodlagemeanwhile homegrown performance wear brand alcis sports sells