Here's some information that Sanah Sharma bombarded me with: Every conventional tailor/designer is bound to waste 15% of the material provided to them. Shocking? Heck yes! And the fashion industry is the second highest contributor to environmental pollution after the infamous oil spills. Who is Sanah Sharma and what does her namesake company do? She is a conceptual, resilient and a progressive young designer and researcher who, with her recent Planar Flux methodology in design seeks to promote sustainability and zero wastage of cloth material in fashion-designing.
So how did this Chennai-based, Pearl Academy alumnus get on the road to discovering her famous Planar Flux technique in design? She explains, "A major part of sustainability is dependant on the design and in India, everyone lives in a misconception that sustainability depends on the type of material we use in design such as Jute, Khadhi, Tencel and Rayon. This idea of the Planar Flux occurred to me in my final year of college when I leaning towards researching sustainability. This technique draws inspiration from Mathematical Topology — these concepts of multidimensionality were applied to fabric consumption and garment construction. In simple words, I infused human-kinetics and mathematical topology to formulate the Planar Flux technique. This technique has served me well and eliminates the 15% wastage that is usually generated in garment construction. Planar Flux was also adopted in the syllabus by the Iowa State University. So far, so good for me, but I won't stop working till this becomes a big deal in India as well."
Ideas don't just pop and bloom out of nowhere. It takes time and effort! In light of this, Sanah explains how she invested her time and did all her homework before Planar Flux was fully threshed out, "When I started off with this technique, I was looking at the sustainability aspect of it, and initially, everything I designed was not zero-waste. There was a certain amount of waste and I would estimate the wastage to probably be 5%. But anyway, I was looking to be mentored by a tutor and designer from the Royal College of Art. He was a source of inspiration and when he saw samples of my work, he seemed pretty darned by it (in a good way). That is when I knew that there are possibilities of higher demand for the products I designed. Post this, I read a lot of research papers on Physics and Maths and tried applying it till I got to the zero-waste technique in designing. I further went on to win the International Zero-waste Design Competition by Faculty of Design, at the 5th International Scientific Conference for ALICE held in the City of Design, Ljubljana. That was thrilling and it expanded my customer base and reach on an international level. But if you ask me I would definitely want to reach a wider audience here in India," she adds.
While thinking of the future and what it has in store might intrigue or overwhelm most, Sanah has got it all planned and figured out. This is what she had to say, "I am currently setting up my online store and I am hoping that it will be up and running in the near future. I am planning to collaborate with institutes and do workshops on sustainability more often than usual because I like teaching. My mentor and I have plans and collaborations to look forward to and I am super-excited for everything that this year holds for me."
