Indian artists design comic strips to raise awareness about water consumption in the fashion industry

A single cotton shirt uses up to 3,000 litres of water to make and a denim jacket takes about 7,500 litres — enough drinking water for one person for six years! A report published in states that “according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, textile production uses around 93 billion cubic metres of water annually — the equivalent to 37 million Olympic swimming pools.” In order to raise awareness around the pressing issue of wastewater stewardship in the fashion industry, with a focus on bringing climate-action to fashion, seven artists and graphic designers have created a series of specially commissioned comic strips and works of art. Priyanka Paul, Aditi Mali, Manasi Deshpande, Mehek Malhotra, Vinu Joseph, Param Sahib and Sonali Bhasin had been invited to design comic strips which capture a sarcastic take on producing a T-shirt, and the resources that it drains, with a key focus on water wastage. Manasi Deshpande’s sarcastic comic addresses the issue of greenwashing in the fast fashion industry. Talking about her comic strip series, she adds, “It is a fun take on how things are being made and where we are actually going wrong in practice — the concept of fast fashion and its trap plays with the mind of the consumer with a backdrop of the demolishing environment at a rapid rate.” *** 21-year-old illustrator and poet Priyanka Paul has learnt all of it on her own.