Orange Tree, a luxury furniture, lighting and home decor accessories brand, recently launched “Break the Code: Live the Waste” lighting collection in collaboration with Doodlage, one of India’s first eco-fashion and lifestyle labels, founded by Kriti Tula.  Both these home-grown brands share similar ethos of sustainability and they came together to create beautiful lamps out of textile and fashion waste — a unique concept brought to fruition with style and elegance. Doodlage upcycled the waste material to produce 400 metres of fabric that would have otherwise gone into landfills. This upcycled fabric was used by Orange Tree to create 13 varieties of lamps. By doing this, they saved 10 lakh litres of water that would have been used to produce fresh fabric. And also generated close to 600 hours of work for their artisans. 

The preview was hosted at the vegan all-day dining cafe, People of Tomorrow — founded by Ritv Kapoor — at the Dhanmill compound in New Delhi. Nikita Bansal, who heads the product and retail at Orange Tree, shared that there are two categories of lighting collection — ‘Antz’ and ‘Flake’ — that have come out of this collaboration.  In the ‘Flake’ collection, they have used fashion waste and the concept is abstract minimalism. Flakes of fabric have been used here, which gives the collection its name. The lamps are made in two shades: beige and blue. In the Antz collection, they have used textile waste — the waste from the export factory that gets disposed of. It has been recycled, converting fabric into yarn. In this yarn, blue and black is outside the fabric, which has been woven on it; it creates a ‘marching-ants’ feel; ergo, it is called the Antz collection. “With these two collections, it’s an experiment from our end to promote conscious buying among consumers who are aware and make conscious purchases in terms of food, clothing, home décor, etc. They have the power to positively impact the environment and the eco-system that leads to a circular economy. So, in a way, we are propagating conscious shopping and if there’s a demand for it, we would like to use a similar collection into furniture and other stuff. And there could be more designers and artisans working on this,” said Nikita. 

Home lifestyle brand Orange Tree is the retail brand of the Jodhpur-based furniture exporters Basant. They have recently launched their flagship retail store in Hyderabad. Basant has been exporting to some of the best brands around the world for the last 25 years.  The idea behind venturing into retail, as envisioned by its founder Vinay Kumar, was to nurture a home-grown brand for the domestic market. All the big global brands that we have been exporting to, like Zara Home and H&M Home, are also very excited about our new collection. Sustainability is important to everyone and this is our small step towards a better environment and a better future,” Nikita added.

Orange Tree was born in 2014 to get the global design and style to domestic consumers, which Basant creates and exports to all the top brands across the world. According to Nikita, they have the great combination of craft and contemporary, material and handmade, at Basant. They have been setting the design trends in the furniture and home decor segment for a while now. In terms of design and quality of products, they consider themselves at par with the global brands. 

Talking about the choice of products by Indian and foreign consumers in terms of style and design, Nikita said that the Indian market has evolved with people travelling and accessing a lot of information online. Five years back, it was not the same, so they wouldn’t have thought of probably opening a store in Hyderabad. But since its launch this year, it has been receiving an overwhelming response. “People are more open and aware of the global trends and want to follow the same trend. Also, a lot of these global brands, like Zara Home, Ikea, Pottery Barn and Hatil, are entering the domestic market. So, now the whole design language within the country is also changing and this is the right time for the company to focus on the domestic market,” Nikita said. They design for the global market and no country or region in particular. They have a range of lamps coming in papier-mâché; it’s sustainable, and creates no wastage as it gets worn out. Nikita said that if the sustainable lighting collection does well, Orange Tree would like to take this across categories. Furniture is a huge segment for them and it can definitely get into furniture and accessories eventually. If the collection picks up, they would explore many more styles and move into multiple directions.  

“This is our first collaboration with a furniture brand. Through a marriage of décor and fashion, we hope to create a more holistic circular economy. Sustainability requires hands-on involvement from both the design and artisans to ensure impeccable quality while staying as waste-free as possible,” said Kriti Tula, Creative Director and co-owner of Doodlage, which has been collaborating with brands that focus on sustainability. Earlier, it has partnered with Decathlon, Oceedee, Ruby Organics and many others. Tula, a trained fashion designer, started to conceptualise her brand in 2012 after she graduated from Pearl Academy in New Delhi. In 2014, she launched Doodlage to work in the fashion industry in a sustainable and green way.