About Me
Ayubowan! (Long Life!) I'm a Sustainable Designer from Sri Lanka
Ruwanthi is a sustainable fashion and textile designer who explores traditional crafts and preserves such crafts and incorporate them into her designs to obtain environmentally and socially sustainable garments.
My vision has been about exploring sustainable fashion avenues and practices since the very beginning of the degree. I seek to incorporate my Sri Lankan heritage and sustainable methods of ancient Sri Lankan culture to support slow fashion and to produce eco-friendly garments. Through my designs, I communicate the importance of timelessness and the slow movement. I attempt to demonstrate that how a timeless garment could truly explore its life story and depth of design. As designers, we have so much power and responsibility to change the world by producing such timeless pieces.
INSPIRATION
I design under the ethe of four concepts: low-impact, low-waste, longevity & recyclability.
'kǣli' means pieces in my native tongue and the main inspiration behind my concept was to bring pieces of waste fabrics together to create innovative textiles by incorporating diminishing heritage craftsmanship. My concept attempts to combine environmental and social aspects to create impactful garments that will benefit the wearer by providing a durable and quality product, producers by empowering the marginalised artisans and most importantly mother earth by designing responsibly.
In terms of design, my garments pass on an ethos of timelessness by embracing a combination of low tech high tech techniques that express 3Rs in the complete garment lifecycle. I used zero-waste, upcycling, reconstruction techniques that not only produce a low-waste garment but also display the interrelations of these different methods in a cohesive manner. I collected preloved denim that I was able to upcycle by deconstructing them in a fashion that allowed me to embody them into my collection.
MY WORK
PORTFOLIOS
kǣli - A Sustainable Collection
kǣli - A Sustainable Collection
kǣli - A Sustainable Collection
天国 - "Heaven"
蓮 - "Lotus"
戦士 - "The Warrior”
昇る太陽 - "The Rising Sun”
田 “The Rice Field”
kǣli - A Sustainable Collection
Moodboard
Colour Story
Muse of 'kǣli'
Design Development - Textile Story
Design Development - Print Story
Trend Analysis
Silhouette Development
Brand Story
Technical Specifications - "Heaven"
Technical Specifications - "Lotus"
DETAIL
I wanted to explore textural elements in the garments using sustainable materials and methods.
Incorporating both conventional and innovative techniques to ensure that my collection only makes use of low-impact materials and techniques. The collection uses low impact materials such as unbleached raw cotton, biodegradable buttons and fasteners made using regenerated cellulose; employing hand-woven handloom, crochet and bobbin lace that does not consume any fossil fuels in terms of production. It uses natural dyeing techniques using native plants that produces original colour dyes without releasing harmful chemicals to the planet, moreover, wastewater from the dyeing process can be safely repurposed to water plants. Furthermore, as for high tech processes this collection employs Ozone bleaching and laser printing techniques.
My effort is not just to design sustainable garments but to eternalise them so they will be passed down from generation to generation.
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