SO I’ve seen a couple posts making the rounds about Black and Indigenous owned fashion brands, so I wanted to spread some awareness about one of my favorite Indian brands, Okhai!
So a bit of history to explain why Okhai is so cool:
So in the pre-british era, our traditional craftspeople had a steady source of income. Our crafts were passed down through family, and as such most families had twelve craftspeople, who they would regularly employ for specific tasks (clothing, furniture, jewelry, etc;) Our textile industry in particular was BOOMING, it brought in money not only from within the sub-continent, but also from abroad. However, when the fire nation attacked British came to India, they sought to control our crafts industry. They’re infamously known to have CUT OFF THE THUMBS OF WEAVERS AND LOOMERS TO PREVENT THEM FROM CREATING OUR TRADITIONAL CLOTHS.
So, nowadays, most of their descendants have very little income and are forced to find work in factories, WHICH IS HORRIBLE BECAUSE a) capitalism, and b) in Indian society cratspeople held positions of respect, and being forced to forgo our tradition in favor of western fast fashion is demeaning and dehumanizing. These women (and men, but mostly women) are incredibly skilled and talented, and they not only have to deal with the generational trauma they inherited, but also having their diginity taken from them by mega-corps.
Now, I was first intorduced to Okhai by my sister, she used to model for them, but I really wish I’d known about them earlier because THEY ARE AMAZING!
Okhai helps to support our traditional artisans by incorporating traidtional handicrafts into modern fashion. If you check out their website, you’ll not only find a wide variety of GORGEOUS clothing, you’ll see that they give their funds directly to the artists who create the clothes! You’ll help support tradiional artists and you’ll get cute clothes too!
The western world has co-opted a lot of Indian fashions as ‘boho’ and ‘quirky’. This not only contributes to the appropriation of our culture, but also to the suppression of the artisans who created the fashion. So, next time you want some alternative desi fashion, turn to Okhai!
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