Mason and Mill
The designer on the importance of comfort and construction.
Shivani Gandhi’s desire of becoming a fashion designer arose when she was in elementary school, and it never faltered.
The daughter of a textile manufacturer, Shivani Gandhi’s childhood was coloured by the heaps of factory-made fabric that surrounded her. Stories from her childhood and the ever-dominant presence of the mill, had her fixated to fashion. The allure of designing garments from textiles spun in her father’s mill had her gripped since she was in elementary school. The desire to make clothes was perhaps the one constant in her life.
One year after graduating from college in 2019, Gandhi launched her own label. Unlike factory-milled fabric, Mason and Mill was driven by Shivani’s desire to work with handwoven textiles. Her aim was to create a conscious Indian brand that specialised in making casual, everyday clothes. She’d heard stories of brands that struggled, of how it was difficult for small teams. With little by way of easy breezy fashion in India, she decided to give it a go.
She claimed a small corner in her father’s factory in the heart of Bombay. While the machines roared, she experimented on a new line. Her inspiration was herself, the desire to make thoroughly modern clothes that she could wear herself. She likened the craft to masonry, the construction of a garment to building a house.
Easy Breezy
The kind of pieces that transition with effortless cool.
Thus the name, Mason and Mill, was a true reflection of her situation.
Four years after its launch, Mason and Mill found its market in small independent boutiques overseas. The demand for Indian garment export has branched out from fabric to fashion.
Herein lies Mason and Mill’s charm: the garments feature clean, flowy silhouettes emboldened with solid colours. Gandhi follows a fixed process. She begins with the textile and colour first, the source of her inspiration. From there she riffs on one idea: to create fuss-free clothing for well-lived days.
“This means that you can just throw on the first thing that you see in front of you in the wardrobe without too much thought, and go about your day comfortably,” says Gandhi.
Textiles are spun in house and everything is handwoven. With every garment she makes, Gandhi tries to hero the fabric as much as she can. She places an emphasis on weavers, the backbone of Indian cloth. This began when she first worked with a group of weavers in Madhya Pradesh. Since then, she has gone on to work with a charitable trust that supports women weavers. After that, she expanded to weaving clusters from West Bengal with whom she is currently engaged.
Creating handwoven textiles and working with weavers is a long process. While weavers are often resistant to change, the task of convincing them to experiment and execute novel patterns falls upon Gandhi. The laborious task, on the opposite spectrum of mass-produced fabric, motivates Gandhi to explore deeper within India.
As sustainability and acute awareness of the ills of fast fashion dominate global conversations, Gandhi attempts to incorporate sustainable and ethical practices in her production process. There is also the need to ensure that the weavers, without whom the handlooms of India would fall silent, are ensured fair wages and employment. “It's such a great bridge between brands and the weavers. It’s our challenge that they are well taken care of,” she says.
JoB Desk
JoB Desk is the Editorial Team of Object Magazine.
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