The Kotpad Project

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

A second field visit to Kotpad in November 2023, by Mevin Murden from IM Mumbai and Kirsten Scott from IML included a film crew and photographer, as well as Bina Rao and her husband Kesav Rao from Creative Bee. Multiple interviews were conducted with Kotpad aal-dyers and weavers, as well as with the youth in the community and other local stakeholders, with extensive film and photo documentation of their processes and the socio-cultural-environmental factors that impact their craft today. The team included Saloni Lakhia, from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, who did an initial needs assessment to coordinate with stakeholders in proposing capacity-building programmes for the community in literacy, numeracy, entrepreneurship, IT skills and e-commerce.

The most pressing needs - identified by the artisans and by Creative Bee - are to record all the traditional artisanal processes so there is a detailed record for posterity, and then to support the artisans in finding new markets for their work that attract a higher price point.

Students and tutors at IML were able to draw on research conducted by the tutor team, in dialogue with Creative Bee and the artisans of Kotpad to develop a series of interventions that aimed to support the preservation of the craft in the short-medium term.

While visiting Kotpad, some team members delivered some initial training on e-commerce and social media, as well as on packaging and branding that may help to emphasise the incredible luxury of this endangered craft.

In addition, students at IML were able to direct questions to the Kotpad artisans through local intermediaries. This enabled the research team and students on our MA Sustainable Fashion and Systems programme to gain crucial insights into local context, the challenges and obstacles faced by the Kotpad artisans and their communities, and the implications of these in developing appropriate recommendations. 

Researchers conducted a series of one to one interviews with the women dyers and male weavers, as well as group discussions with local youth. Rich detail of local complexities was also gained through observation and informal, ad hoc conversations with local community members.

Business students at IM Mumbai have created a logo for the Kotpad artisans and set up their instagram account @purushottam_kotpad.

PROPOSAL FOR KOTPAD

STAGE 2 ACTIVITIES

In stage 2, textile students in Mumbai developed textile designs, working within parameters set by the artisans; fashion design students in Mumbai and London, and design tutors on London, created small collections that incorporate some Kotpad fabrics; MA Buying students in London developed range plans for commercially viable clothing using Kotpad fabrics. A team of film makers and photographers from IM Mumbai created a mini-documentary about the people and processes, and a beautiful, illustrated book was published about the artisans and their work, to preserve in formation about and promote this endangered craft. The findings of the research were analysed and reflected upon, and a case study of the project written up.

KOTPAD VIDEO

Presentations and publications:

Deep localisation: a future for internationalised European fashion schools , co-authored by Kirsten Scott and Mevin Murden, was presented at and published in the proceedings of the Cumulus 2024 Budapest conference. It presented a case study of deeply contextualised learning in the context of the expansion of European design education to non-European regions, drawing on the Kotpad project, and made recommendations to fashion educators and to future design school x artisan collaborations.

DOI: 10.63442/IZUP8898

How might international fashion education help to heal the sacrifice zones? was presented at the SCIN conference in May 2025, an event hosted by IEREK, the University of Abu Dhabi, and Istituto Marangoni Dubai. drawing on research from the Kotpad project, it highlighted the responsibility of internationalised European design schools to actively contribute to healing the wounds caused by western fashion on non-western fashion cultures.

Exhibition:

Practical outcomes of the Kotpad project were exhibited in the Making Sense exhibition of IML research in February 2025.

REFERENCES

Cheang, S., De Greef, E. and Takagi, Y. (2021). Rethinking Fashion Globalization. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press

Niessen, S. (2020). ‘Fashion, its Sacrifice Zone, and Sustainability’. Fashion Theory, 24(6), 859-877

Torretta, N. B., & Reitsma, L. (2019). ‘Design, power and colonisation: decolonial and antioppressive explorations on three approaches for Design for Sustainability’. Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management Conference 2019. Retrieved on December 2, 2023, from https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-161779

Yin, R. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. London: Sage Publications Ltd.