Making khadi great in 2026: Indian designers highlight why they work with the fabric

Shruti Sancheti uses khadi and other weaves for her labels, Across 29 (above) and Pinnacle

The story of khadi is woven into our history. Unfortunately, it mostly makes news only when wanting to give a history lesson for special days. But, some designers choose to continue working with the freedom fabric. As we celebrate the 157th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, three designers discuss their choice of designing with khadi.

‘Khadi is a sentiment'
Shruti Sancheti

Designer Shruti Sancheti has been working with only Indian weaves like khadi and other fabrics for two decades for her label Pinnacle and Across 29. "Khadi is not a fabric, it is a sentiment. If there was ever something that could be called our national fabric, for me, it would be khadi."

Shruti Sancheti

Having grown up in Kolkata and studied History honours before studying fashion, Sancheti cherishes the significance of khadi even more deeply. This narrative very often makes people think khadi is boring or humble, but it is a versatile fabric and can be beautiful and luxurious too, she says. Khadi also appeals to the environmentally conscious buyer today. But designers need to give it a contemporary expression and work on textile innovations.

"I don't think khadi itself needs to be made fashionable. What needs to change is the way we interpret it for today's lifestyle, through silhouettes, colours, and value addition. The fabric is timeless, the expression around it needs to keep evolving."

The bigger challenge is that the weavers she works with are often the last generation willing to take up weaving. "We need to educate the global audience about khadi beyond its historic relevance. It needs to be a collective effort between the government, designers, and weavers, to promote khadi, educate people, and make it accessible to a wider audience." She sees khadi entering a new era though. "Khadi has never been more relevant. In a world facing climate change, sustainability is no longer a trend. It is a necessity."

‘Craft doesn't need sympathy. It needs relevance'
Amritha Ram

Amritha Ram, the creative director of KH House of Khaddar believes the next chapter of khadi is about reinvention without erasure. "You don't have to remove its history to make it modern. You simply have to give it permission to have a future." Khadi, she says, carries its history without being trapped by it, and can be used in a contemporary space.

Amritha Ram

"The real luxury of khadi is not perfection; it is individuality." The challenge is keeping the craftsmanship economically relevant in a world that expects everything to be faster, cheaper, and uniform. "Handwoven cloth cannot compete with machines on speed, and I don't think it should have to. As designers, our responsibility is to create enough value around the craft that the people who make it are valued too," says Ram.

Sustainability cannot be only about the fabric. It must also be about the people who make, buy, and wear them, she adds. It is not enough to commission a handwoven fabric for one collection and then disappear. "Weavers need consistent work, better visibility, and a market that understands why handmade cloth should command a different value," says Ram.

House of Khaddar believes that the next chapter of khadi is about reinvention without erasure

The craft needs to be made aspirational for the next generation. If younger people see weaving as something that offers neither financial security nor growth, naturally they will look elsewhere, she rues. "Preserving a craft cannot mean asking another generation to preserve it at their own economic expense," she says, "That has changed the way I look at my responsibility as a designer. I don't want to use khadi simply because it gives a collection a beautiful story. I want design to create desire for the fabric, because desire creates demand, and demand creates continuity. Craft doesn't need sympathy. It needs relevance, demand, and fair value. Khadi should be allowed to be desirable before it is dutiful," she sums up.

‘The anonymity of the weaver is an ethical issue'
Shafaque Ali

Khadi has memory, says designer Shafaque Ali, founder of the label SHAFAQUE. "Most textiles are engineered for identical production runs. Khadi, after 10 years of use, looks more interesting than it did on the first day. The weave softens where it has been worn. The colour deepens where it has caught the light," says Ali.

"I grew up in Jharkhand, where handloom was not heritage - it was simply the way cloth was made. My mother's generation bought khadi because it was available, not because it was symbolic. It wasn't until much later, when I was studying in Florence and working in New York, that I understood what had been lost in my own distance from it."

Actor and filmmaker Molshri wearing a khadi ensemble by SHAFAQUE at Cannes 2026

She says that there is something scientific about the way hand-spun cotton absorbs dye differently from mill-spun cotton - the irregularity creates depth that no synthetic process can replicate. Ali says that the nature of the fabric is not a problem to be solved; you work with it rather than around it.

Khadi from different regions behaves differently; she uses the denser weave from Wardha for her structural pieces, and Bengal khadi which is softer for layering against the skin. At her showcase in Paris - part of The Couture Concord (which she hosted as a CCIFI France-India Young Talent during the India-France Year of Innovation), Ali stopped trying to match dye lots and started naming each piece individually.

Shafaque Ali

Khadi weavers still face a recognition crisis, she says (she raised this concern at the 16th Round Table Conference of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva last year). "The anonymity of the weaver is an ethical and a commercial problem. And lowering prices is not the solution."

Ali includes a narrative record with every garment, aligned with the EU Digital Product Passport framework, a necessity for her to scale into Europe. "Khadi has been confined, for too long, to a certain silhouette vocabulary - the conventional ethnic register. That is not khadi's limitation. That is the design community's limitation."

Natural phenomenon like El Niño also affect khadi production. The majority of India's cotton for khadi spinning is almost entirely rain-fed. "El Niño is not an abstract environmental concern for khadi. It is a direct threat to the livelihoods of lakhs of artisans."