Designer Nida Mahmood launches eco-friendly fashion line

Hailed as the ‘Queen of Indian Kitsch’, Nida Mahmood, a prominent designer hosted a preview of her latest endeavour, Madam Marigold recently. It is eco-friendly to its core and 100 percent swadeshi in its essence. The collection uses two techniques –ajrakh printing from Gujarat and a 160-year-old unique photography technique – to create the entire collection. It uses different kinds of sustainable fabrics, handlooms, natural dyes and natural ways of printing. For ajrakh, all the ingredients used in the process of dying and printing are all-natural, like using turmeric for yellows, pomegranate for rust colors, onion peels, tea leaves, beetroot, hibiscus, marigold, natural indigo and more.

Apart from ajrakh, the brand uses the analog technique to expose prints on textiles and paper, an extremely tedious technique that requires a lot of attention. The collection brings the Indian simplicity back in the limelight by reviving the age-old craftsmanship, something that can be enjoyed by a 20-year-old to someone in her 70s.