Woven Stories
With the rise of fast fashion and the ever-present mentality that clothing is disposable, we have truly lost the value of clothing. In today’s consumer culture, there is an immense disconnect between the consumer and where their clothing has come from. Our clothes carry stories. Stories of craft, people, culture and traditions and we need to reconnect with these stories to place value back into clothing and understand the importance of artisanship and preserving traditional craft and cultural heritage. Because this is what sustainable fashion is all about.
Photographs by Anushka Shah
Casa Nushki is an ethical fashion brand striving to do this. Founded by Anushka Shah in Fes, Morocco, Casa Nushki is combining artisanally made fabrics with sexy, classic and chic silhouettes to create clothing that empowers both the women who wear her clothes and the women who have made her clothes.
In conversation with Anushka Shah
SD
To start with, could you tell us a bit about yourself and the story of Casa Nushki.
AS
So Casa Nushki emerged in a very sort of random and serendipitous way. I was in Morocco on a solo trip, which I needed for personal reasons, and I had always wanted to start a fashion brand but I thought I’d need to have a lot more skills and experience in running a business to do so. Because I had a job before, but it wasn’t really my vision that was being executed. So I was in Morocco and I just felt ready.I was in quite a depression mode before the trip and I felt like it really brought me back to life in a way. I found these amazing textiles and made patterns by myself and was just like, I’m going to try and make some clothes and see what comes out of it. But it was never like, I’m going to start a fashion brand, which to me is what made it so special because it felt very organic. So, I found these carpets and made friends with this man and his family, and he found me a tailor and I made 10 pieces, which were just designs that I’d created in a sketchbook at a hostel. It was a collection of very random thoughts. Then I had them made from carpets and indigo dyed cotton. I then met this girl who happened to be a model, we became friends and she was living in Valencia at the time. So I went to Valencia and she happened to live in this amazing, old, colonial house, so we did a photoshoot together and the photos turned out to be stunning. I then made an Instagram page, and people were like, “where can I buy this?” So I went back to Morocco after my graduation and about two weeks later I met this woman who runs this cooperative of weavers who do traditional Moroccan weaving from Cactus silk, using their own symbols and designs. It was started by a woman called Laila who founded it after her divorce , to give work and financial freedom to a lot of women in the community and her friends and family. So it’s literally under ten people weaving in the mountains. It was really amazing and at the time, when I met them, I was thinking, this is so cool but how is this going to work logistically. But then they cooperated so well with me and it felt like a really good synergy, and it’s so important to keep the tradition alive and I think they are really grateful for it in this sense, as am I.
SD
Was there a ‘this is it’ moment that instilled the passion and drive to work with the women on a collaborative design?
AS
I think I always wanted to work directly with female artisans, rather than with people who sell fabric in markets, because it’s usually men that sell these fabrics. It’s really nice to know that my money, my time and my collaborations are directly with the people who weave fabrics, rather than the middlemen of people who are, you know, exploiting artisans and not paying them well. But overall, the supply chain is so clean, it is directly from them to me. When I went there, there was so much warmth and sisterhood and it felt like such a home. I lived with my mum and grandma and sisters and there’s no men in the house and my family is very creative, very spiritual and my grandma does a lot of embroidery, ceramics and sewing and it was something that felt really homely for me. It was a house full of women who create, so I think that was a bit of a ‘this is it’ moment, I think the energy just felt really right. I met other people who did similar things, but Laila was just a very warm person who understands my mission. Her daughter is the only one who speaks French and Laila speaks Arabic, so we would communicate through her daughter who is my age. But they really liked the message and mission and that’s really important to me, there’s no exploitation and it is completely collaborative.
SD
This is so important, because a lot of sustainable fashion narratives have become dominated by designers coming in and encroaching their own ideas on a community and extracting the identity, labour and resources without considering the communities needs. It’s also not about platforming the stories or identity of the people they are working with but just extracting what they need.
AS
Absolutely, and for me it’s about finding a balance, because obviously it is a business at the end of the day. So, for me, I have to also be conscious of being practical, strategic and not getting so completely carried away with just the stories as that’s what I love, but there are other elements to it, you know living in London and having to pay rent.
SD
So, speaking of the sisterhood of the women and the synergy you felt when you first met them, have you seen the positive impact that your collaboration has had on the female artisans?
AS
The women are just really, really happy to be working together because it’s their first collaboration. I get really sweet messages from them, for example the actress, Nat Kelley, wore one of their pieces and she has quite a big following on social media and she shared a video of her wearing Casa Nushki at New York Fashion Week. I sent it to the women and they were just like, “oh my god, this is amazing”. It’s just so nice to be able to connect their work with somebody.
SD
Can you tell us more about the design process and what the clothes are made from?
AS
So I use a variation of fabrics, some of them are made from traditional carpets. I actually went to Mexico and tried to see if I could make some kind of production line go from there, but it made me realise how difficult it actually is. I think in Morocco, it all worked really well, I was put in contact with Laila and it all worked from there. But in terms of design, I get really inspired by the textiles themselves. I want to make women feel hot and to make women feel special and unique, sexy and empowered. But I want to strike the balance between wearing clothes that have that unique, hand-woven made by women, or from vintage textiles, but also modern silhouettes. A timeless aspect is also really important to me because I really don’t like trends. I've never been someone that follows trends, I think they’re a money-making scheme. I did an internship at Vogue a few years ago, and I’d be writing so many articles about the trends that were changing every week, and I get it people always want more but that is part of the problem. I mean that’s where all the waste comes from. Fashion used to be about making things timeless and cherished. There’s also an element of people not being scared to wear things that are not traditionally in fashion and being able to match and use your creativity in a way that’s not conforming to trends.
SD
I think that is so important to sustainable fashion, not conforming to trends and wearing clothes because we value and cherish them. I think the storytelling aspect behind Casa Nushki pieces contribute massively to this. Wearing garments that you know have been ethically produced, by a community of women, who are given a voice and an identity, and are very much an equal part of the brand, that in itself will make you feel good and should make you want to wear the clothes all the time. I know it would for me.
AS
The clothes themselves are actually all made in London. So the carpets are made there and then the clothes are made over here, which explains the price point. But that’s a big part of the timelessness, the clothes have to be very well made. I don’t cut the patterns myself, I design them, and then I do sort of the twirling and sampling process and I cut them and then I work with the studio that makes them all handmade,
SD
With the rise of fast fashion, mass production and the Eurocentric fashion identity, there is a significant risk of the loss of cultural identities and traditional, artisanal practices. Is the preservation of craft something that is really important to the values of Casa Nushki?
AS
Absolutely, I think something that made me realize how much that mattered to me was when I was in Wahaca, in Mexico, and I met this woman who had a shop with vintage textiles and modern textiles as well and there were two pieces next to each other. One of them was hand embroidered, woven, traditional Mayan dress and it was so stunning and I could feel the stories and details that went into it. Then, next to it, there was another piece that was acrylic and the same pattern, as the traditional woven dress had been printed onto the garment and it felt horrible. It was a piece of plastic fibers, made in China and it really didn’t make me feel good. It amazes me how shops sell clothes for such a small amount of money, because the workers are evidently getting paid nothing. I don’t think I fully understood before I went into it myself but if a top is being sold for 10 pounds or five pounds, we are not paying the people that make that item. But yes, sorry I keep going off on tangents, but cultural identity is really important to me because I think that it’s not just about fashion, at the end of the day, so much of it is about cultural identity and history. Also a lot of it is linked to the way women have been living for such a long time, which I did find to be pretty amazing in Mexico. Especially because I spent some time with artisans who were doing embroidery work and in different regions of the country they have different types of embroidery according to, firstly, the fibers that grow best in their soils and secondly, the flowers that are most indigenous for different parts of the country. Which is so cool. Like it's literally, it's such a cyclical thing that is very much in tune with nature, which I find so peaceful and that's something that I would like to work with more. I'm actually planning a trip to India at the moment. I’m Indian and I know there’s so much there, to be learnt and discovered.
SD
Absolutely, regenerative fashion,indigenous knowledge and traditional practices are in abundance in India. I firmly believe that the only way we will ever see a truly ethical fashion system is by returning to this indigenous wisdom and knowledge, rather than constantly trying to enforce top-down approaches, with Western ideas of what sustainability means. It really needs to be about platforming the voices and knowledge of the non-Western communities who have been living sustainability and regeneratively for centuries.
AS
That’s what I found, especially in Morocco. Someone told me that the most powerful machines that we have are our hands. And that, that felt so true in some of the villages that I visited outside the city, everything was done slowly and by hand and in tune and in alignment with the natural resources that we have. It wasn't like we were fighting against nature. The introduction of synthetic fabrics after the Industrial Revolution has made this so much harder, like it's made it so much harder and costly to produce things by hand. People also have to understand that it takes time and it's not everyone's priority, especially in these countries that are facing bigger problems. For example, I spoke to younger girls who are like 18 to 20, in Mexico, and they wanted to go into the military or they wanted to do law; they wanted to do things that would have a direct impactful change in the system that we're living in, as opposed to learning traditional craft skills. So it is definitely such a privilege to be able to be like, I'm going to go and keep these crafts alive. And I'm very lucky and privileged to live the way that I do. So I think that that's also another thing to consider, we’re all on our own path and we want to do what we can do for the place that we're in and not impose our rules and ideas on other communities.
SD
Your newest collection is created from a trip to Mexico is that right?
AS
I think Mexico was definitely a trial and error trip. Because as I said before, Morocco sort of felt like a domino effect, everything was just flowing and things were really working in my favour, very organically. Which you can't expect that to be the way that it's going to be forever. So yeah, Mexico was a big lesson in learning how many hands it takes to produce one piece of clothing. I met this amazing community that was started by a grandmother and then taken over by her daughter and her daughter's husband and their family, in a village near Wahaca. It’s known for weaving carpets and natural dyes and all these things. But this studio was really cool because they weave their own cotton and silk and wool and I literally saw the cotton plants and the silkworm like being made into yarn and then being sewn, it was super transparent. So they wove some cotton for me and dyed it using coccinea, which has red and pink dye. Seeing that whole process was amazing, but it is very long and very expensive, so I actually only made one sample dress, as I didn't think about the practical side of things. I needed someone to cut the fabrics and I needed someone to sew the clothes, and then the dyeing and then the embellishments on top of that. It was like I was literally cutting things myself. So there were a lot of errors that were made because you know, you can't just trust any random tailor that you find so it was like a lot of that in Wahaca. I mean, Mexico is incredible and there’s so much more to discover, so I barely even scratched the surface of the textile industry but a lot of the textiles are a lot thicker and more coarse as well. But the fabrics that I used for this summer's collection are actually all vintage so yeah, so these pieces are all made from fabrics which they just don't make any more. That’s the other thing, while I want to keep the traditional crafts alive, I also realised that there's so much fabric that already exists and if it exists in the form of vintage fabrics that aren’t being used, it makes sense right now, because otherwise what’s happening to them?
SD
What have been some other challenges you’ve faced as the founder of Casa Nushki?
AS
The biggest challenge I think, is still showing up for it. It's honestly like your relationship because you still have to show up and give your energy and give your time. Give your love, even if you're not feeling like it because you're your own boss. And you have to make time for things that you don't enjoy. Because in order for it to flourish you have to commit and I think for me, that's been a personal lesson. It's so powerful, just the ability to commit to something with longevity in mind, and not give up when it gets difficult. Because I think I'm such a Sagittarius, I get bored so easily and so quickly and this has been such a good teacher for me. I feel like I'm becoming the person I want to be. But yeah, in more practical terms, like just expenses and all of that - that is difficult. You know, living in London and wanting to do things with your friends, go for nice food etc, you have to be strategic. So I'm sort of in the middle of figuring out how to keep things because it's, you know, upcycling and then shipping and all of that it's a much longer process then using rolls of fabric. And fair wages in London are very different to fair wages in Morocco, or India. So that's something to keep in mind. So I'm trying to figure out how to do that. I think India will be pretty amazing as well. Like, I want to also go back just to connect to the place that I’m from and haven’t been back to since I was 14.
SD
I think one of the biggest challenges facing sustainable fashion at the moment is that the narrative has been dominated by the Western perspective of sustainability, that promotes consumption as a solution. We are presented with the idea that the simple solution is to just switch fast fashion consumption for more expensive, “ethical” consumption, when really, we cannot buy our way to a sustainable future and the system itself needs to be reformed. But because the general misconception is that to be sustainable we need to buy more expensive, ethical clothing that are not affordable for many people, have you been confronted with people asking why Casa Nushki pieces are at the pricepoint they are? And how do you get around this?
AS
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I struggle with that, because I think that it's been an issue for so long that we just don't understand the value of clothes. And we don't understand the work that goes into making a garment, a high quality, timeless garment, you know, there for the sake of art and not for the sake of trends or disposability. So I think we need to understand how much effort and how many hands and how much travel and how many things go into making one thing. If I'm honest, I feel like I'm under charging. But I'm not paying myself a salary. Honestly, I know it’s unaffordable for the majority of people and that is something I’m dealing with, but because I am working on a made to order basis, that does make it more expensive. Ethical fashion is not something everyone can afford, but if you can afford it, you should definitely be putting your money into some of these clothes that have stories attached and have ethics and transparency behind them.
SD
The whole system is broken and it needs to be transformed, from the root, so that as a society we don’t actually think it’s okay for clothes to cost the same as a sandwich. We have to change our mindset and unlearn and relearn to see that it is right to pay fairly for something that people are hand-crafting. But because of the rise of fast fashion, we now think we can pay the bare minimum, so I think there needs to be a major attitude shift.
AS
For sure, but then I also understand that not everyone is in the position to be buying clothes for the sake of art. If you have to buy clothes from Zara, or H&M or SHEIN, this makes sense, but we should be ensuring we keep them for a long time. But what I do get annoyed at is influencers, who obviously have so much money but choose to promote fast fashion. But I think we have lost the sense of the human aspect behind fashion.
SD
What are your hopes and visions for the future of Casa Nushki?
AS
I want to continue to make iconic and fun pieces for women, but also want to develop tiers, so I make the crazy fun, amazing pieces that you won’t wear every single day and then also develop more light, wearable everyday clothes as I am very conscious of the fact that the fabrics that I use are not the easiest to wear for all body shapes, because they are quite sturdy. So, I do want to work with more light and flowy fabrics. I also really want to work with silk when I go to India. I also love writing and telling stories, so I would love for it to become a platform for stories, anecdotes and clothes.