On UpCyclie’s website, one encounters patches of fabric coming together in bewildering patterns the way smithers of coloured glass do in a Kaleidoscope. These patterns have names and an assigned value in the market: to mention a few, backpacks, kids’ bags, memory bags with names, patchwork waist bags and denim belt bags. If one tried tracing those patches of fabric to their sources, the explorer would end up in dozens of tailoring shops in Chennai.
For Namrutha, the founder of Upcyclie, the journey to the tailoring shops began with a simple question: what happens to all the leftover fabric?
A bag made with patches of discarded fabric
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“Chennai alone generates 251 tonnes of textile waste every single day,” says Namrutha, whose Upcyclie describes itself as “earth-friendly travel bags from fabric waste, by women”. Two hundred and fifty-one tonnes is a bit on the heavier side: it would take the collective weight of 46 African elephants to tip the scales against it.
The answer to the above question turned out to be a call to action. The voices were different, but the answer was drearily uniform. “Fabric scraps had no resale value, so they were either discarded or burned; we do not have the means or the money to process them” — that was well over 100 tailors speaking to Namrutha, as she criss-crossed Chennai in her quest.
It is an environmental crisis that is neatly papered (well, clothed) over. Namrutha wanted to talk about it: she wanted her actions to do the talking. Tailoring shops began to exert a magnetic pull over her: during lunch breaks, weekend and after-office hours, she would invite herself to these shops, in Kamarajapuram, Rajakilpakkam, Sembakkam, Nanganallur, Adyar, Besant Nagar, T. Nagar, Adambakkam and Thillai Ganga Nagar (that list is far from exhaustive) and return home with wads of fabric waste.
Fausia, who works with Upcyclie, with her creations
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The tipping point arriving sooner than expected, she turned her back on a carefully grown career as a growth marketer, to become a “tailor” with a difference. She would stitch meaning into what the regular tailors discarded as meaningless.
“I quit my job in December 2021 and Upcyclie is my full-time job — my bread, butter, idly, dosai, everything!” laughs Namrutha.
The work is marked by a tessellation of two major SDG goals, just as the bags it gives birth to are marked by an artistic assemblage of fabric pieces.
From the beginning, Namrutha was clear who should drive UpCyclie: women from urban slums, domestic abuse survivors, acid attack victims, and now, rural artisans as well.
Bhuvana who works with Upcyclie
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Namrutha points out they work from home, balancing their craft with their families. They make their own schedules. They dictate the pace of production. And, most importantly, they earn respect – not just income. “One Akka said her daughter asked for her opinion for the first time. Another, once dismissed in her own household, now trains construction workers on fabric sorting,” Namrutha elaborates. “My goal was simple — to establish a baseline and grow, because revenue meant food on the table. As the revenue grew, so did the transformation in the lives of the Akkas.” Namrutha’s all-women workforce numbers 45 — 33 fulltimers and the other 12 currently in training.
Patchwork redefined
Fabric scraps arrive, get sorted within 24 hours, and then move straight to the women who craft them into usable materials. The result? Vibrant, sturdy products that refuse to be boxed into “sustainable fashion” stereotypes. After four years of Upcyclie, Namrutha has forged a new meaning for patchwork — in her dictionary, it is not a quick fix, but a head-turning style statement.
“My first ever conversion of waste to fabric had to do with patchwork. I made the first patchwork myself. But because I was pulled down and spoke to all the wrong people initially, I did everything other than focussing on what needed to be done,” says Namrutha. It was not long before she mastered the genre of patchwork designing and also found the ability to impart that skill to others.
And customers have also bought into the new definition of patchwork. The brand has now expanded to Amazon US, Canada and Mexico.
Published – March 08, 2025 06:45 am IST
