KHADI TIMES – THEN, NOW AND FUTURE

Textile

Khadi is known as freedom fabric, identified with India’s freedom movement. Khadi has silently and relentlessly revolutionised India during independence. Khadi is Eco-friendly, sustainable industry hand spun hand woven, is still offering livelihood to millions of people. The Khadi agitation during India’s independence was directed to disregard and reject foreign goods, to endorse and popularise Indian goods. The arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, gave new direction of self-reliance and virtually becoming a powerful weapon of non-violence. This compelled the mighty colonial rule to exit after which India became independent. Khadi fabric is woven with humble cotton, to exotic silk or wool yarns made by using spinning wheel or “The Charkha”. Rough yet soft, fabric texture is achieved by weaving on the loom. But the beauty of this versatile, rustic fabric is that it can be woven into finest light weight to medium as well as heavy weight fabric, to design Indian as well as western apparel, shawls & furnishings etc. The focus is to show the upsurge of Khadi which stood the test of time from India’s independence as fabric that gave freedom to now. This fabric worn mostly by Indian politicians has gone international. Khadi in magical hands of designers became luxurious; it has now come to limelight as a sustainable fabric. But it did not catch up with the times for masses, the youth due to the inherent shortfalls in design and fashion appeal. OBJECTIVES • To study the moods of Khadi in context to democratic, affluent and local perspectives. • To analyse the awareness & promise of Khadi at 100 years post-independence. • To analyse its scope for design expectations for the young professionals. The research design is exploratory and descriptive; the source of data collection includes primary and secondary.

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