Homegrown Brand Jaggery's 'Bagtivism' Is A Bold & Refreshing Take On Sustainable Design

'Celebrating Urban Decay' is the latest campaign by homegrown brand Jaggery in collaboration with photographer Shoeb Mashadi. The theme of the campaign is finding beauty in urban decay which in this context happens to be landfills and auto scrap yards in Delhi-NCR. Against the backdrop of discarded waste are the commuter bags by Jaggery that are made out of repurposed retired car seat belts and cargo belts, bouncy castle materials and ex-army canvas. Celebrating Urban Decay' in its name and imagery perfectly captures the mission of the brand.

Founded by a team of a multidisciplinary designer trained in New York, a conservation architect trained in Philadelphia, and a retired Physics professor from Delhi University, Jaggery was born out of a need for climate solutions. They didn't just want to formulate a brand but create a circular establishment that would tackle multiple problems at once. Shaped by the pillars of "sustainability, empowerment, innovation, collaboration & social responsibility", Jaggery's impact ranges from improving artisans' lives, reducing waste, preserving traditional crafts, supporting sustainable incomes, conserving water, and mitigating carbon emissions.

The brand calls their bags ‘ecomodernist commuter gear’. The cargo belts used in their production not only prove to be a durable material but also lend themselves to the Jaggery’s visual identity. There are a lot of brands that use repurposed materials for apparel and lifestyle accessories but there’s no visible trace of the material’s history in the end products that look anew. Jaggery, on the other hand choses to preserve the story of these materials and make a statement out of it in an attempt to truly reclaim urban waste and subvert the narratives on ‘waste’ and a ‘new’ product. By doing so they encourage their consumers to take pride in their conscious decision to choose better for the planet.  

With different collections that are born from segregating the materials like all black cargo belts in ‘Noir’, decommissioned orange belts with serial numbers in ‘Serially Circular’, And the rainbow-coloured punctured bouncy castles in ‘Pride’, the brand truly celebrates urban waste. Their operational framework helps them practice ‘Bagtivism’ that intersects different kinds of activism like fair wages for the artisans, gender equality and climate action through a simple business of making bags. Apart from this, the brand also works with various artisan clusters across 66 states reviving traditional crafts such as kantha, pattu, ajrak, kalamkari, zardozi, and cane. 

One of the core principles of ecomodernism is to provide material prosperity for everyone while minimizing harm to the biosphere. It sees technological progress not as antithetical to nature but an ally that could help us as at least partially decouple our material requirements from it. Jaggery embodies this philosophy by proving that there is no need to exploit anymore natural resources with discarded textiles hold such potential to as raw materials. In both style and substance, Jaggery emerges as one the brands that are a need in this Anthropocene, representing the voice of all those who consider themselves a responsible citizen of this planet. 

Follow Jaggery here.

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