Wearable Art: How Shifting the Way We View Our Clothes Can Help Transform Fashion
CFC Member Spotlight: Kashesh Bhatia Garg
Author and interviewer: Stella Hertantyo
Kashesh Bhatia Garg is a fashion designer, stylist, life coach, and mentor. Born and raised in Ahmedabad, India, fashion has been a driving force in her life from a young age. With 15 years of experience creating her own brands, stand-alone stores, and pop-ups across India, Kashesh loves to experiment and explore a range of fashion disciplines.
Kashesh started her label in 2009. Her move to the United Arab Emirates in 2020 saw the beginning of a new dawn for her label and marked a paradigm shift in her perspective as a designer. After two years of research and studies on sustainability and culture, Kashesh rebranded and relaunched her label in 2023 by moving towards a completely sustainable mode of creating for her now eponymous, Dubai-based label — Kashesh.
I interviewed Kashesh in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership as part of our Member Spotlight interview series.
Below are some of the highlights from the conversation, including:
The role of cultural sustainability in creating a more just fashion future,
Why seeing clothing as wearable art can shift our relationship with fashion, and
What to consider when starting a brand that draws on cultural heritage.
What led you to work at the intersection of fashion and sustainability?
It was always my childhood desire to be a designer, but I always wondered how I could use this to add value to people’s lives. When I began my career, I specialized in luxury couture, wedding wear, and bespoke clothing.
I was fascinated with the idea of embroidery, luxury, and helping people look forward to important days in their lives. It was like weaving together stories and dreams. When you’re designing for a wedding, it’s not a one- or two-day job. It can take weeks or months to create an outfit. You become a part of your client’s ecosystem — you go through their emotions with them.
I loved to give my personal touch to every garment, because every garment and every piece was so unique.
In 2019, after 10 years of being in the top five designers in my home city in India, I started reading about the negative impacts and vast pollution of the fashion industry. At the same time, I was realizing that there were ways to create positive impacts in fashion. I wasn’t able to sleep for a few days. I realized I needed to rethink my approach.
But I had to think carefully, because I had a team of over 20 people relying on me. I couldn’t change the way we worked overnight. We already had stock plans and clients in place. This is why the pandemic became a blessing in disguise.
I took this time to intentionally pause and decide that going forward we’d only use pure fabrics, only make bespoke pieces, and we wouldn’t use polyester. But I wanted to go beyond this.
Reflecting on my background in wedding wear, I started to think about how we’re so careful about what we wear on a wedding day — but it’s an outfit you will only wear for one day. Yes, there may be hundreds of people looking at you at your wedding, but you also see hundreds of people every day — when you greet a neighbor, commute to the office, interact with colleagues, and move through the world. This made me realize that we need to care about what we wear every day, as much as we care about our wedding outfits.
Then I started to think about how hand embroidery is a slow fashion practice and a key element of wedding wear, but it doesn’t have to only be for big days.
All these little moments were where my rethinking of fashion began and the rebranding of my label. I realized that I not only want to make people look and feel pretty, but I also want to add value to their lives, while leaving a legacy that creates a better world for present and future generations.
What do you wish more people understood about the role of cultural sustainability in creating a more just fashion future?
If you look at the history of hand embroidery, it goes back as far as the Iron Age. Every culture has some connection to embroidery practices. It’s a practice that holds so much heritage and the stories of people.
Yet today, we reserve hand embroidery mostly for special occasion clothing, such as wedding dresses — because we see weddings as part of tradition. We don’t see it as a practice that can be used to create clothing that we wear every day when we’re often searching for a more “modern” look.
We like to distinguish between “traditional” and “modern” in the clothing that we wear. But why can’t a brand be a modern fashion brand and still have its roots in crafts and culture? You can wear a jacket to the office that is impactful, sustainable, and culturally significant too.
When we think about passing down a legacy outfit, why do we only think about passing down pieces we wore on special occasions or at weddings?
This was an important learning for me. Integrating cultural sustainability doesn’t only mean creating occasion wear, it means finding ways to honor the practices of the past in our everyday lives. That was the inspiration behind creating my brand.
Why is it important for you to blur the lines between fashion and art and see clothing as wearable art with your label?
I go to a lot of museums and read a lot about history. In Dubai and India, textiles are often hung on walls to tell specific stories and share specific messages — almost like a vision board.
One of the most important things, to me, when I was creating my label, was that I wanted to make clothing that empowered everyone in the ecosystem — not just when you’re wearing the garment, but when it’s hanging in your closet too.
Art is seen as only something that you hang on the wall. Fashion is seen as only something that you wear. I wanted to blur that line and show that you can value fashion in the same way as you can value art.
We also often refer to art as an unspoken language. It allows us to communicate across backgrounds, cultures, and languages. It’s empowering and I wanted fashion to do the same.
For someone wanting to start a brand that draws on their cultural heritage, what should they consider?
The most important step is figuring out what you believe in. My journey didn’t start with figuring out who the stewards of cultural sustainability are. My journey started with my love for hand embroidery and working with different kinds of textiles.
So figuring out what you love is the first step. This is important, because if you skip this step and start by trying to figure out if you can make money from it, doing market research, and testing to see if people will buy, then you’re commodifying these heritage-rich practices.
To create clothing that draws on cultural heritage, you also need to consider the bigger picture and question your impact. Ask yourself: What is my work going to contribute 50 or 100 years from now? You can’t create clothing for the sake of it, or because a particular cultural technique is trending.
Starting this journey is as much about unlearning as it’s about figuring out how to create a brand.
***
To connect with Kashesh and get featured in one of our Member Spotlights, join the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership, the online community for sustainable fashion professionals. You'll also get access to live events, workshop recordings, career resources, extra job posts, and more.