When I started Sovereign Studios, I wasn’t setting out to become a natural-fiber person. I knew I wanted to make meditation clothing in India, working with artisans and drawing from the country’s long history of textile craft. It felt like the right way to honor my family’s heritage and honor meditation, an ancient Indian practice itself, through the ancient practices of making.
That’s how I found my way to Khadi.
Khadi is a handspun, handwoven fabric that has been made in India for thousands of years. During Gandhi’s era, it became a powerful symbol of freedom. As British colonization drastically disrupted India’s textile industry, Gandhi wore the fabric as an act of resistance and a political statement. The simple white cloth he wore was the same traditional fabric our garments are made from today.
For us, that means working with Anuprerna, our fabric source in India, and having miles of fabric handspun specifically for Sovereign. It’s a slower process by design. The person making the fabric is part of the story of the garment, rather than an invisible step in a massive supply chain.
Now I Can't Go Back
So it began with a purpose. But unexpectedly, I became very attached to how it feels. Now that I've gotten used to wearing this really high-quality fabric, which was in a way unintentional, I now can't go back to wearing things that I used to.
I notice synthetic fabric now. When a tank top presses against my ribs, or the feeling of the fabric around my armpits, or my waistband. It feels stiff and plasticky against my skin. Things I never consciously thought about before suddenly feel impossible to un-notice.
It’s a little like learning where your food comes from. Once you understand the process, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen.
And the more I learned about textiles, the more I realized how much there is to know.
India was once responsible for the majority of the world’s cloth exports. When British colonial rule and industrialization fundamentally disrupted that industry, India’s share of global textile exports fell to a small fraction of what it had been. Khadi became part of the movement to reclaim local production, craftsmanship, and self-reliance.
That history has changed the way I think about fast fashion, too.
A typical fast-fashion garment can move from trend data to design to factory production incredibly quickly. Low-cost synthetic fibers are cut and sewn at scale, often with inexpensive chemical dyes and low-cost labor. Dyeing is particularly significant: textile dyeing is considered one of the world’s largest sources of water pollution, while synthetic clothing also contributes to incredible microplastic pollution when it’s washed.
Our process looks very different: natural fiber → handspun → handwoven on a loom → sewn into a garment.
The difference is palpable in how the finished piece feels, and in how much of that process you can actually see.
And now that I’ve seen it, I don’t think I can go back.
Love From Anushka, Founder & CEO