Actress Kareena Kapoor Khan has joined the Baradari fundraiser project and announced her engagement with the project on Monday through Instagram. The project, scheduled to run from Aug 7 to Aug 15, seeks to raise money for craftspersons, weavers and artisans of India who are massively hit by COVID-19 pandemic and cyclone Amphan in West Bengal.
The actress wrote on Instagram that it was about time that we began to think about what responsible fashion is and went back to “the source of our clothing”. “Everyone knows I enjoy fashion. But I really think it’s time we begin to think of what responsible fashion is. India is a country with some amazing textile traditions. We have to go back to the source of our clothing, to the real makers of the cloth, and appreciate what they do for our culture and also our wardrobe,” the post read.
Journalist Namrata Zakaria founded the Baradari project, along with core team members including ina Tahiliani Parikh, owner and founder of Ensemble, and Pareina Thapar, co-founder of communications strategy firm Longform. Zakaria stated that the fundraiser seeks to bridge the gap between designers and artisans. “The fashion industry has a lot of social inequalities. The source of everything that comes into the fashion industry are weavers, embroiderers and tailors. But they’re mostly treated like daily wage labourers. The artisans have suffered a lot due to the lockdown and the Amphan cyclone. So, I started this fundraiser initiative,” she said.
More than 100 Indian fashion designers, including Sabyasachi, Tarun Tahiliani, Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla, Manish Malhotra, Anamika Khanna, Rahul Mishra, Raw Mango, Monisha Jaising and Masaba Gupta, have come together for the Baradari project. To raise money for the artisans and weavers, the designers have donated their signature clothes as a part of an e-commerce sale.
Designer Rahul Mishra said that facilitating employment, inclusivity and empowerment for craft communities is the true purpose behind their clothes, and this initiative allows them to further their vision. Textile designer and founder of Raw Mango, Sanjay Garg, also said that the Baradari project serves a very important role in supporting the craft traditions of India and promoting a successful socio-economical growth model for their community.
Kareena, in her post, even said that when Namrata Zakaria asked her to be a part of Baradari, she agreed immediately. She referred to the project as “a new conversation to have with fashion”, that she wanted to be a part of. The actress also stressed on the importance of economic sustainability, stating that the “artisan communities are truly the backbone of the fashion industry”.
