There is no unnecessary drama in her pieces. She is partial to straight lines as opposed to cinched waists, elegant expressions that can be toned up or down. 

She works out of a studio in Gurgaon and is devoted to a discovery and use of sustainable fabrics like cotton and linen. She also experiments with materials such as mango wood acquired from trees which are old and going to get cut. Brass items are handmade by artisans and glass items come from handblown glass. “Nothing is machine made or imported. It’s important for me to promote our workmanship,” she says. 

This connection with the work of local craftspeople is a result of the atmosphere Yadav grew up in. There’s two ways Yadav goes about finding these artisans to work with. First there is a tightly knit craft community of India and then there is her love for travel and search for artisans across different towns in India. These have taken her crisscrossing through the country from Bagru and Jaipur in Rajasthan to Kashmir, and Moradabad and Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh. 

A core concern of the brand is a commitment to sustainability. In her personal life, this manifests itself as love and re-love, that is to wear the same piece again and again. Having a child further cemented her belief in sustainable practices. Soon after giving birth to her daughter, Yadav started thinking about the world she’s raising her child in. 

With the poor air quality and resource exploitation, Yadav believes that it is her imperative, an active effort to live a more sustainable lifestyle. “I realised that you can’t expect everyone else to change. I have to make the change myself,” she says. She began by dressing her daughter in hand-me-downs, instead of continuously buying new clothes.

“I want to do my bit to leave a better place for my daughter, for all kids,” she says.

Yadav’s resolve to follow sustainable principles is reflected in the production process at Basant Kothi. And there are definite challenges along the way, especially when it comes to tracing the origins of a fabric. It has often been tricky to decipher the type of seed a plant was grown from, and whether it was cultivated using organic methods. But Yadav does what she can. For instance, she works a lot with linen since it is made out of fibre from the flax plant—a low-maintenance crop that doesn’t require too much pesticide and grows well if there is adequate rain.

But there is an obvious downside to choosing sustainable fabrics: the prices are a lot higher compared to synthetic fabrics. Each step matters, especially the first and this is Yadav’s in the right direction.