Bhaavya Goenka is an alumnus of IICD, India and IIM-A where she received the gold medal for Academic Excellence and the best project award for the submission ‘Iro Iro: crafting fashion out of waste.’

Iro Iro now functions as a circular design practice based in Jaipur. Her practice engages with the upcycling of industrial textile waste through indigenous craft practices of India. The studio works towards building replicable systems that allow decentralised development whilst creating conversational products through zero-waste practices. Her efforts have been recognized by many reputed publications, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue, and Platform and have been invited to showcase her collections at Lakme Fashion Week twice. In the past 5 years, Iro Iro has also received awards from other esteemed platforms, like the Lexus Design award and 20 under 35 by DESIGN X DESIGN.

“Only through collective action can we ensure healthy sustenance of the environment and people.” In her journey to make fashion responsible, she has collaborated with Calico, Japan; Matter prints, Singapore; Doodlage, India; The Summer House, India; The House of MG, India, among others.

With every collection, the aim is not to achieve scale but to attain prosperity throughout the value chain because “the next big thing is lots of small things.- Thomas Lommée.” So far, they have upcycled about 10 tonnes of waste off-cuts into handcrafted fabrics saving 200 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere over the past 5+ years and generated work for 20+ artisans based in a village near Jaipur.

They were selected to take part in the Fashion Open Studio x COP26 (UN Climate Change Conference 2021) and awarded a grant from the United Nations. By raising their voice globally, Iro Iro hopes to sustain local wisdom and enable Indian craft communities to reclaim their rights; to fair wages, to education, to dignity.