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

S4E05: What is Regenerative Fashion? Inside Oshadi Collective's Soil-to-Garment Story | Nishanth Chopra

·56 min·4 clips

“Organic is about not doing harm” and regenerative is about “reversing the harm.”

Fashion starts long before the garment. The guest pulls regenerative practice back to farming, where the point is not just to avoid damage but to bring worn out soil back to life. Organic, here, is only part of the story. The sharper divide is between doing less harm and doing the slower repair work that land and yield both need. Certification gets a raised eyebrow. The guest notes how outside systems can take local farming knowledge, formalize it, and then make farmers pay to prove what they already know how to do. That says a lot about sustainability when it turns into a gate instead of support. The episode also spends time with craft. After studying in England and seeing Harris Tweed tied to luxury fashion, the guest comes home with fresh respect for weavers working in older, slower ways. Time becomes the luxury, not a glossy finish. Handwork, foot powered processes, and patient making carry more weight than the usual rush of high fashion. The host keeps the pressure honest: how does a natural process survive in a market that wants speed, delivery, and constant supply? The answer is grounded. The guest talks about teams, departments, stock, cotton held for six months, and the investment needed to resist instant production. Care sounds lovely, but it also has to be planned. Farmers who go further into regenerative work get different support, while the collective keeps building relationships across the supply chain. By the end, the hope is not flashy. It is stubborn, steady, and rooted in showing up again.

As heard by us

A thoughtful look at fashion measured in soil, time, and care.

This episode treats regenerative fashion as a chain of consequences, from soil and cotton to the authority of certifications. It keeps circling the same question: what clothing looks like when it is made to repair instead of extract, and how that idea reaches labor, luxury, and…

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You want fashion explained from the ground up, literally.

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