Riteish Deshmukh Made A Strong Case For Repurposed Fashion On Diwali By Getting Himself And His Sons Kurtas Made Out Of His Mom’s Old Saree
When I was a kid, Diwali for me mostly entailed shopping for new clothes and flaunting them on the day of the festival. In my defence, that’s what we had been prescribed by the age-old traditional norms and school essays, right? You wear brand new clothes on Diwali! That was the deal, right? However, it was only a few years ago that buying a totally new outfit for a couple of hours started to seem a bit pointless to me. Also, if I have learnt anything from spending eternity on fashion blogger’s videos about mixing and matching different pieces of clothing to make a unique and an innovative outfit, it is that you can easily fix up your Diwali outfit too with what’s already lying in your cupboard. Riteish Deshmukh is proof.
While the fashion influencers preach the practice of upcycling and celebrities promote sustainable fashion, it seems like there’s no such word as recycling in the celebrity dictionary since we almost never see them upcycling or even repeating their OOTDs. While that’s true for most, it is not always the case. In fact, for Diwali this year, Riteish Deshmukh decided to undo the traditions of buying the kids new clothes and instead upcycled his mom’s old saree into three festive kurtas for them and himself.
He posted a picture of his two sons Riaan And Rahyl and himself in the blue kurtas repurposed from his mother’s old saree and wrote in the caption, “Maa ki purani saree, baccho ke liye Diwali ke naye kapde (Mother’s old saree, new kids for the kids). Happy Diwali…. #recycle shot by @geneliad.” This creative gesture sends out a great message of sustainable fashion and might encourage people to recycle old fabrics even for festivals rather than continuing to contribute to fast fashion and heaps of textile waste.
Also Read: This Sustainable Fashion Initiative Re.Purposed Aims To Reduce and Refurbish Textile Waste Into Covid Masks. This Needs To Be The Way Forward In Fashion
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Reusing fabrics and designing a new outfit out of worn out clothes isn’t new, especially in the Indian households. We all have a lehenga from our childhood that was made out of our mom’s saree or a silk saree that has been refurbished into a gorgeous dupatta. However, lately the fashion industry has been thriving on the concept of fast fashion and newness which has been extremely toxic to the environment. It took a global pandemic and the subsequent serious loss in the retail industry that forced the brands and customers alike to rethink about the buying habits and most importantly what it does to the planet.
By recycling old clothes and fabrics and taking up the minimalistic approach to shopping, we can lessen the textile waste significantly and contribute to a sustainable future. Not to mention, it saves your big bucks, brings out your creative genius in the process and keeps alive special memories attached to a piece of fabric for a long time, just like Riteish’s kurta from the saree that once belonged to his mother.
Another celebrity who made headlines by wearing a repurposed, or restyled I should say, outfit for another very special occasion was Kareena Kapoor Khan when she chose to restore her mother-in-law Sharmila Tagore’s bridal sharara set for her wedding.
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The ensemble that was worn by the veteran actress in 1962 for her own wedding to Indian cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and was revived and restyled by Designer Ritu Kumar into a contemporary sharara set for Kareena. It was refreshing to see Kareena reusing her MIL’s wedding outfit when she could have easily gone with any designer bridal outfit in the world. Since it’s quite rare to see celebrities recycling old clothes and wearing it for a festival like Diwali, Riteish’s gesture comes across as very inspirational and important and we hope it encourages fans to take the road to repurposed fashion too.
