Khaloom is an India based textile design and production house that offers hand woven fabrics made from recycled yarns. Based in the middle of the weaver’s colony in Bengaluru, India, Khaloom’s vision is to preserve the craft of handweaving while promoting the use of upcycled textiles. This world changing company offers a solution to the large volume of textile waste and the stressful living conditions of handloom workers in India.
Of all clothing produced worldwide, 40% is thrown away: Textile waste occupies nearly 5% of all landfill space. But this way textile waste is literally wasted. Enviu and partners saw an opportunity to come up with a business case for large-scale recycling of textile waste into apparel-grade fabrics via handcrafting. In 2015 the concept of Khaloom was born.
Khaloom was founded by Enviu, Sympany, and Nanditha Sulur. Enviu is an international venture building studio that builds world changing ventures with the mission to bring systemic change. Sympany is a Netherlands based innovative recycler and textile waste collector, who invests its profits in starting new projects that contribute to a sustainable textile industry.
Two birds with one stone
India is the second largest producer of textiles worldwide. It is therefore no surprise that the textile industry is a cornerstone of the Indian economy. Handloom plays a big role in the industry and is a national pride. However, mechanisation of the economy has taken its toll as there are only 2.38 million handlooms left opposed to double the number of weavers. Of the 4.3 million handloom workers, 57% are below the poverty line, and 80% are in debt. Khaloom doesn’t only save textiles from being wasted, but also creates employment for local artisans.
Cutting waste from industries and clothes are discarded, but still have high value. At Khaloom, the waste is shredded mechanically into fibres and spun into yarns (post-industrial recycled and post-consumer recycled respectively). These yarns are then constructed into upcycled textiles. Khaloom uses handweaving, a culturally-rooted production manner, to upcycle recycled yarns into high-quality fabrics. Handweaving is perfect to upcycle small quantities of waste and is an energy-neutral production manner. Handweaving requires only manpower, whereas machine looms can require up to 126 kWh of power, which equals 93 kg of CO2 emissions.
Khaloom honours traditional craftsman. Their unique skills are celebrated and preserved by providing work opportunities relevant in today’s age. The company works with the deepest sense of respect for the artisans, mostly women, by celebrating their culture and for the environment by the recycled materials they work with.
Khaloom is led by Nanditha Sulur, based in Bengaluru, being responsible for the sales & operations in India and Elzevan Veenendaal, based in the Netherlands, responsible for the international clients.
Made with Khaloom
Bija Artisans, Summerhouse, Likeminded, The Nadhi, Ren London, Ronald van der Kemp are some of the brands Khaloom works with, supplying them with its handwoven upcycled textiles. Khaloom teamed up with Suitsupply to create a suit for the Dutch minister of Medical Care & Welfare, Bruno Bruins. The suit was made from 100% recycled fabric and saved an amazing estimated 5kg of CO2, 300 grams of pesticides, and 6,500 liters of water.
With the ambition to scale Khaloom’s hand weaving unit to 11,000 meters per month and set up production on auto looms of 72,000 meters per month, Enviu can provide brands on a global level with the opportunity to change waste into a resource and facilitate a hopeful future to workers in their product chain.
Mask with a purpose
Khaloom donated 1000m of its handwoven & recycled fabrics to the Let’s Mask India Initiative! The initiative aims to bring high quality masks to those in need, whilst at the same time providing employment and a livelihood to workers from the garment industry, workers who have faced a lack of work as a result of the Covid-19 crisis and ensuing lockdown.
Source: khaloom.com
