Adiv Pure Nature
Warm Greetings to all from Mumbai!!
I am Rupa Trivedi founder of Adiv Pure Nature. Today I would like to share with you our poetry on cloth with Temple Blessings.
Nature offers such beautiful array of colours. I believe, in fact that the human perception of colours has come from the treasure troves of nature. The dyes extracted from flowers and herbs represent mother nature’s splendour both robust and beautiful as much as serene and soothing in her irregularities. The gifts of nature are innumerable, and this constant mystery unravels through natural dying as each process of dying reveals new iterations and new facets of it
Adiv Pure Nature our natural dye studio, is based in Mumbai. It is dedicated to sustainability of nature through natural dyed textiles, while preserving this ancient tradition as a sustainable circular green process. While we use the known natural dyes to create breathable beautiful textiles, The Temple Blessings is our flagship program.
Adiv’s Temple Blessings project was born from a passionate desire to use the flower offerings that were traditionally tossed into the sea after being offered at temples. I was inspired by the dye potential held in every cast-off flower. The Temple Project, our flagship program, is a unique initiative of recycled temple offerings as dyes for our fabrics. The flower blessings are given new breath, re-registered on cloth as a physical reminder of their original intention.
My obsession became the core of our work
I began my initial research and experiments of dyeing with marigolds because they are the most important flowers in all of our rituals. They are also the cause of considerable environmental pollution.
By 2012 Adiv was ready for greater quantities of flowers. With great effort, we reached an official agreement with the famous Siddhivinayak Temple of Mumbai for release of their flowers offerings to Adiv. This temple receives over 4 million visitors a month and the collection of the offerings each day is close to 500 kgs. Incidentally the massive increase in the floral tributes has now compelled our civic bodies to dispose these precious blessings to overflowing dumping grounds.
As per our agreement, Adiv now collects these temple offerings (Nirmalya) thrice a week. We receive roughly 40 to 80 kgs per day . Our bags thus collected contain an assortment of Marigolds, hibiscus, small quantities of rose and Husks of the coconut husks offered at the temple.
Recently we added the blessings of Peer Haji Ali Dargah an iconic Mosque in the middle of the sea in central Mumbai. The offerings collected from here primarily consists of Red Roses that are interlaced with white Lilies. These Roses are picked up twice a week and the quantities vary between 30 to 50 kgs .
Today Adiv receives the discarded flowers from both, the Siddhivinayak Temple as well as the Haji Ali Mosque. The precious blessings embody universal sanctity that represents a sense of calming serenity and positive energy which gets translated onto the cloth with the dying. These beautiful blessings truly add new meaning and fascinating dimensions to our repertoire of breath-taking textiles .
A favorite among flowers offered at the temple is Marigold, both yellow and orange. As a dye, Marigold yields the customary bright yellow associated with its petals and also a rich mustard and deep fern
Roses is another important flower which are often placed as holy offerings specially at the Mosques. The Red Rose petals yield pinkish purples & dark aubergine tones. The jeweled tones of this dye are simply stunning.
Coconut was a very happy discovery for Adiv. It is a part of the temple rituals and the fresh green coconuts is a popular thirst-quencher .
These discarded husks and peels give a beautiful old rose-pink hue that is very soft and soothing to the eye. Surprisingly its fastness properties are very good.
Red Hibiscus, this favorite flower of Lord Ganesha is customarily well-known for its use in Ayurveda. As a natural dye the colors rendered on fabric range from a dark blackish-purple when mordanted with iron to shades Lime green when mordanted with alum
Thus, we can see how The Temple Dye Endeavour has formed a very interesting and valuable chain.
The flowers are nurtured and harvested by the farmer who is the closest to nature. This gives the economic opportunity to him as well as the flower vendor who sells them to the devotees. These discarded blessings provide the economic empowerment to Adiv Artisans as these create the magic of these ‘living colours. Our waste reuse also includes discarded organic onion peels which I collect from the farmers Market every week
As a part of our endeavour for sustainability we recycle the used dye water and the flower and dye residue is collected to be sent for composting Thus making it a complete from Earth to Earth cycle. We are dedicated to our commitment to sustainability and eco-friendly processes which are the key characteristics of Adiv Nature Pure.
Focused dedication and a constant exploration of creativity laid the foundation of the wide repertoire of Adiv’s creations. Countless experiments and many mistakes were a part of our endeavour as we strived to perfect the art of dyeing with flowers and make it a commercially viable project. This necessitated innovations to simplify the dye techniques with detailed focus on successful replications. We took the guidance of the ICT university to perfect our skills and match international testing standards for establishing sustainable production processes.
Team Adiv innovated practical dying and the avid learners became teachers. A passionate drive for learning made a jobless mechanic the Master of Natural Dyeing. Over the last few years, Dye Master Mukhtar and I have conducted many successful workshops internationally such as STF the Zurich college of Fashion and the Textile Centre in Minneapolis. These workshops have been an amazing learning experience and often our participants are knowledgeable and experienced natural dyers!!
Our participation in International Folk Art Market gave us opportunities to do Dye Demonstration at the Eileen Fisher store located in Santa Fe and also at the Market itself.
We happily educated many curious onlookers as well as dedicated buyers.
The transition of from learners to teachers has been a very rewarding and fulfilling Journey .
Our Temple Project has had successful and meaningful collaborations with many international buyers like Dosa (Christina Kim) Eileen Fisher, Lanius Germany and many more such acclaimed brand. We also had the privilege of working closely with a few slow fashion designers of India like Maku Textiles and Padmaja Krishnan. They had worked on sustainable collections and included Adiv’s Textiles. Today Adiv prides itself for having many happy buyers big and small, spread all over the globe. The temple blessing are reaching to as many around the world and spreading its serenity world-wide..
Designer collaborations are extremely essential for constant inspirations to enhance latent creativity.
Adiv-Dosa collaboration is one such example. It began in 2014 when Ms Christina Kim first came to our studio and fell in love with our little world of temple flowers and Adiv’s beautiful human hands. Christina’s exceptional design sensibilities and vision for Dosa, took us to a new level, embracing the temple dye textiles in the most pure and beautiful way. It added a new meaning to sustainable fashion.
Such alliances between acclaimed Designers and an unusual Artisan promote collaborative innovations and create a meaningful impact.
Besides the Traveler collections Adiv and Dosa also collaborated for some really prestigious projects .
1. The famous stone pillows created for Pulitzer Arts Foundation Project in June of 2015
2. In 2016 we were a part of the Peter Zumthor project for the Venice Biennale.
3. An installation of pink stone pillows and Spanish moss pillows in the conservatory at the Cooper Hewitt Museum NYC and the Egg UK event were also done in 2016
From the feet of the Gods— these Flower Blessings bring in an aura of serenity and the same is transferred onto the cloth like a beautiful poetry. The Temple Project aimed to create a dye palette that is 100% based on recycled temple waste applied in a scientifically controlled manner to achieve beautiful textiles with excellent fastness properties.
Adiv and its Temple Blessings project are pioneers in this craft and its aesthetic . Ours is a small but unique example of sustainability. We have not only recycled the flowers but also implemented it by promoting organic composting of its Dye Wastes and setting up a unique water recycling system at the studio.
Adiv Pure Nature has come through as a winner despite many challenges and trials. It constantly strives to revive and innovate the incredible arts of natural dying that bring immeasurable joy. Created in Adiv is a small sustainable world that is a beautiful example of environmental friendliness, preservation of ancient traditions and a social enterprise for the benefit of its workers and their self-respect.
But above all
Adiv is Love – Love for the humans and the environment that heals the world and makes it a better place!! Together, we can and must make it a better world .