Announcing our free course for first step into sustainable color understanding:
Five years of running ColorAshram taught me that the biggest barrier to sustainable dyeing isn't interest — it's access to clear, honest information. Textile and fashion students in India are told that "sustainability" matters, but rarely shown what that actually means: what synthetic dye pollution looks like on the ground, what natural dyeing chemistry actually involves, or how to try it themselves.
That gap is what I spent the last year trying to close.
Under the Impart + Nalli Fellowship 2024–25 — a collaboration between Nalli Silks and Impart supporting research into underexplored South Asian textile histories — I researched, wrote, and directed Understanding Colours: A Learning Module for Sustainable Dyeing Practices. It's a free, five-film series tracing the story of colour and dye: from the true cost of synthetic, petroleum-based colour to what you can dye right in your own kitchen.
The research behind it: 9 recorded interviews with textile educators and sustainability practitioners across India, informal conversations with 18 more professionals, and a corpus of 28 academic and industry sources — read alongside seven years of training natural-dye start-ups at ColorAshram. Natural-dye pioneer Arun Baid and textile author Monoleena Banerjee shaped the scientific and historical grounding; eco-print artist Shraddha Barde brought the practice to life on screen.
The five films:
🎬 The Dark Side of Colour — the history of colour and how the dye industry came to be
https://youtu.be/4Veso3K5e9E
🎬 The True Cost of Synthetic Colour — the environmental and human cost hidden in most of our clothes
https://youtu.be/c6ediY4nnx4
🎬 Peeling the Onion: Inside Fashion Reform — sustainability, reform, and why systemic change is so complicated
https://youtu.be/T_ATKdOocDI
🎬 Seeing Is Believing — what industrial-scale natural dyeing actually looks like today
https://youtu.be/Z-1u_fGBrUs
🎬 What Can Be Dyed in the Kitchen: A Beginner's Guide — a practical introduction anyone can try at home
https://youtu.be/9guamRxUMp8
Every film is free to watch, alongside companion articles and a curated reference library — built for students, educators, practitioners, and anyone who's wondered what's actually in the colour of their clothes.
If you teach textiles or fashion, or know someone who does, I'd love for this to reach a classroom. And if you watch even one, tell me what you'd add — this was always meant to be a starting point, not the last word.
#SustainableFashion #NaturalDyes #TextileEducation #ColorAshram #SlowFashion #NalliFellowship #SustainableTextiles
