The IKKIVI Podcast: Exploring Fashion, Culture and Values · Nivi Murthy

S3E8: The Conscious Choice: Bandana Tewari on Navigating Fashion and Sustainability | Bandana Tewari

·59 min·4 clips

Bandhana argues that a polyester shirt can be more viable than cotton in some parts of India.

1. The IKKIVI Podcast episode S3E8 examines Bandhana Tewari’s account of fashion, sustainability, and personal responsibility. 2. Host Sapnna Sharma interviews Bandhana, a former Vogue editor-at-large, TEDx speaker, writer, and fashion-industry advocate. 3. The conversation asks how consumers can make meaningful choices when fashion systems, marketing, and environmental impacts remain difficult to see. 4. Bandhana recalls beginning with a 500-word newspaper space before working at Elle magazine and Vogue. 5. She describes fashion journalism as superficial and disconnected from disciplines such as gender, feminism, and cultural history. 6. Bandhana interprets padded shoulders in 1980s womenswear as connected to women entering male-dominated Wall Street spaces. 7. She distinguishes legacy brands including Dior, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton from fast-fashion companies such as H&M and Zara. 8. Bandhana explains that fast fashion shortened the traditional six-month design and buying process into rapid, volume-based production. 9. She says Zara’s collaborations with legacy brands helped make inexpensive fast fashion appear legitimate, cool, and aspirational. 10. The discussion connects low prices to working conditions, fair wages, and human-rights concerns in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam. 11. Bandhana acknowledges that she participated in fashion’s excessive consumption during her Vogue years and did not yet use “conscious consumption” as a framework. 12. She recalls feeling “suffocated” by accumulated possessions, including expensive garments that still had their tags attached. 13. Sustainability conferences introduced Bandhana to textile experts, bioengineers, technology researchers, and innovators working outside mainstream fashion. 14. She links fashion production to women’s labor, noting that many women producers lack adequate labor-law protection and healthcare. 15. Bandhana says the word “sustainability” has become diluted through greenwashing and argues for greater attention to regenerative practices. 16. She recommends checking where an item comes from, how it was made, who made it, and whether it is biodegradable or compostable. 17. The interview has a reflective, conversational style, with Sharma asking personal and practical questions and Bandhana answering through career memories and examples. 18. Bandhana uses Gandhi, the Green School in Bali, cotton farming, plastic, IKEA, and craft traditions to test simple assumptions about ethical consumption. 19. Listeners interested in fashion history, labor, sustainability, and mindful consumption. 20. Listeners seeking trend forecasts, shopping recommendations, or fast-paced fashion news.

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