Green Days: Non-toxic clothing for kids
Posted: 11.18.2010 at 9:31 AM
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What started off as a couple of sketches and a dream, turned into a budding business for bindu kasinadhuni and sara hignite.

Sara Hignite from Chakra Design Studio says, "We were on the playground and Bindu approached me.  We were playing with the kids and she said, 'You know, I'm thinking about getting back into the workforce, I've been home with Neela all these years and I think I might do a kids clothing line. Are you in?' 'Yes, I'm in. Let's do it!'"

But this wasn't going to be just any clothing line.  It's a children's collection infused with Bindu's cultural influences from India.

Bindu Kasinadhuni says,  "All the dyes, everything is derived from vegetable matter and they're dyed by these group of printers in a small village where I grew up."

That small village is in south India where Bindu just spent 5 months last year.  "Initially it was for four weeks and I had this in mind" Bindu explains 

Sara Hignite continues, "She was actually working in these printers workshop with these artisans, boiling in 120 degree heat, boiling these vegetable dyes."

And when she returned, Chakra Design Studio was born.

Each design, true to the Kalamkari dyeing and Indian block print design. all made by hand in Bindu's village. For these two women, green was the only way to go.

Bindu says,  "The whole core of this kind of printing is being green. If I don't do it this way, there's no other way."

Sara Hignite says, "It's also about not being harmful to the artisans who are working with these materials and also being non-toxic and safe for the children who are wearing the garments."