Madhu Vaishnav, Saheli Women Collective: ‘In any business relationship there should be mutual benefit, and some love’
“I am not a fashion designer, and none of my women have studied fashion. Yet we understand the craft very well, because it is in our DNA.”
Along the Amsterdam canals, Madhu Vaishnav, founder of the Saheli women's collective, outlines her mission. Until July 29, the brand's third in-house collection is on display, after which the pop-up will move to London. The Saheli Shop features organic cotton shorts, hand-dyed wrap dresses and co-ords, among others. Anyone who tries on the clothes is offered an Indian chai. This is how the makers of the clothes want to be known from now on: as a full-fledged fashion label, no longer 'just' as a supplier to other slow-fashion brands such as Amsterdam's Zazi Vintage, Tedo from Tokyo or Louise Misha, a childrenswear brand from Paris.
The Saheli Women Project began in 2014 in Bhikamkor, the village of Vaishnav's husband, and so, by marriage, hers too. The village was going through a period of hardship, and she wanted to do something about it. She spent 10,000 rupees (a little over 100 euros) on some yarn and a small, seventy-year-old space that had been built by two generations of women from her in-laws' family. The business ran on know-how: "I brought in what I knew myself, and my women taught each other what they'd learned from their mothers."
Around the world on Instagram
Saheli has supplied brands in the Global North from the beginning, with orders coming in via Instagram. "From day one, we used our social media channels in the best way to tell our story. We put all our challenges, our successes, our feelings, our failures, everything, out there." It's that transparency, she believes, that drew clients in. "On social media, people tend to tell fairy-tale stories about sustainability, but really it's hard work, every day, with plenty of failures along the way. People connect with us because of that honesty."
A little over ten years on, Saheli is a collective of more than two hundred women spread across villages in Rajasthan, near Bhikamkor and Kali Beri. Along the way, it has built up a steady client base of around twenty slow-fashion brands ordering significant volumes. Supplying those brands has been a valuable experience, Vaishnav says, but something didn't sit right with her; About two years ago she decided it was time to reposition Saheli as an independent brand.
The growth of Saheli Women's collective has coincided with a turbulent decade for the Indian economy: demonetisation, the introduction of GST, the pandemic, and the uncertainty of a new government in 2024. Through the disruption of Covid-19 in particular, Vaishnav says the collective's client base held firm: "We arranged multiple calls with our clients, all women, to work out a strategy for how we were going to survive this. We just found a way through it. They kept ordering, and we kept working."
With men's jobs disappearing during the pandemic, it was the women of Saheli who kept the income flowing. "Our women were still earning money, and for months and months they were the only earning hand in the house," Vaishnav says. "That's when people in the village actually started believing in Saheli.
The shift in power became visible in an old ritual: after Covid, husbands started pouring their wives chai. "For the first time in their lives, a husband would say: okay, now you're earning money, I'll make you chai in the evening," Vaishnav recalls. She considers it a romantic gesture and a real shift in power alike. "A man going into the kitchen to make chai for a woman is a very big deal in India."
Then women stopped veiling themselves. They started taking contraceptives, deciding that two or three children were enough, not without backlash from the village, particularly from the men. Vaishnav: "I think the biggest difference between women and men is the capacity to make a difficult decision and carry the risk of it. Women can handle that better.”
"This is our craftsmanship"
It was around the time of the pandemic that Vaishnav became frustrated with how some brands Saheli collaborated with handled the ownership of the designs and the collective's story. (It's called cultural appropriation). “Some seemed to be appropriating our identity, and we started to feel a strong 'no': this is our craftsmanship, these are our colours.” She saw through the underlying system at play. By positioning the collective merely as a production unit, the balance of power shifts: the brands become heedlessly powerful, while the supplier is reduced to a labor force. “We do not want sympathy, nor compassion, but equality with them. It is as simple as that.”
The Saheli Women Shop went live two years ago with an online webshop. Now, Vaishnav is making plans to expand into local boutiques. “There is a lot of support for our work in cities like Amsterdam, we have already sold well,” she says, while giving a short tour of the pop-up. Besides trying on the clothes, visitors can participate in Rajasthani cooking classes, or a workshop on making tassels or Bandhani (tie-dye). London will look much the same. Making the journey to be part of all this in person, is a conscious investment, she says: “Taking the trouble to travel here. Selling clothes. Talking about our collection. Meeting retailers. Building awareness. Sharing our story. Spreading the word.”
The collection on display is titled Karma, a word that may be poorly understood in the urban environments the label intends to sell. Beforehand, there was long discussion among collective members about its meaning; some of those reflections have made it into the catalogue, set in italics around campaign images of an Indian model wandering through Vrindavan, a city significant to Hindus as the place where Lord Krishna grew up.
The garments are recognisably Saheli, featuring silks coloured with natural dyes, in-house embroidery, and staples made from cotton grown locally by farmers working directly with the collective. Indian Sarees and lehengas (traditional three-piece outfits) are reimagined with tailored silhouettes, alongside more muted colour tones and streamlined patterning.
In Vaishnav's view, the collection highlights India’s wider, often understated contribution to global fashion and lifestyle culture. "Chakra, mantra, yoga — so much of what's now common in the West is rooted in knowledge from grassroots communities. It's important that people understand what India has given the world."
At home, Vaishnav has had to defend these designs. Some say she shouldn't be selling updated versions of traditional clothes to Western brands. That is not how she sees it: "Fashion isn't really about copying anyone, it's a way of expressing how you feel. Being what you are, that's the most fashionable thing there is."
Mutual benefit
While Saheli Women will continue to support other slow fashion brands with production, Vaishnav is now more selective about partnerships, favouring mostly bigger brands that can help build the collective's capacity further. For example, one partner sends a Japanese quality-control specialist to train the women in technical finishing. Another helps with improved logistics and packaging. "When a professional truly understands and values your business, and wants to share their knowledge to help it grow, I think that's extremely valuable. In a business relationship there should be mutual benefit, and there should be love in it too."
Set against an industry many times its size, she doesn't see the collective as small. "The Western fashion system is very big, very powerful. In size we're small next to them, but our voice is strong." She draws her self-confidence from the collective's value system, which is sustainable at its core. "A big brand run by men would bring in a third party to write their sustainability strategy for them. We think of our community and mother earth as the biggest stakeholders in this industry. We have a zero-tolerance, no-nonsense policy when it comes to how we treat our environment. That conviction gives us courage, and thát is something you can't buy."