Our Story
Hi, this is Mitali and I wanted to walk you through a short journey of our brand.
Bahkti & I met coincidently while I was working on some designs at her family run unit. Our mutual love for art got us closer as friends. We spoke about home, family, work & how we wanted to start something that would be fun not only for us but also our team mates.
I am a painter… a dreamer; she is a strategist… a realist.
It was definitely going to be a challenge to find the right balance, so we explored ways to realise this. Along the way we had a lot of help and guidance from our friends; these women are experts in their fields of textile design, Printing, merchandising and so on. Equipped with loads of passion and a whole lot of enthusiastic women we started DANBA (Vietnamese word for Wise Woman).
We wanted to create consciously made garments with as little a carbon footprint as possible. So we sort out various MSME mills for fabrics and also worked with artisanal weavers in Bengal.
I then created artworks in water colours and had these designs digitally printed on soft cotton satin as per the design needs. Combining all these elements we created our first collection of resort wear.
DANBA is rooted in the use of ethical practices and is committed to consciously sourced materials.
Brand Owner
DANBA is the visual expression of contemporary aware women.
It is the creative expression of Indian designer Mitali More. An alumni of London College of Fashion she has graduated in BA Hons Design technology and has been designing and collaborating for 25 years in the industry.
Brand Owner
Under the creative direction of Mitali the brand has been delivering a contemporary wardrobe for the whole customer. She has hand drawn all the prints (which have been digitally recreated) on styles which are optimist and unique. She believes and practice in conscience sustainability and has carried forward the same to the brand philosophy.
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Vision
Celebrating personal identity through unique pieces created with hand painted artwork using a few traditional techniques with some new age technology with the core of conscious living.
Mission
We want to be the catalysts of a cultural movement towards social good.
We don’t need a handful of people doing Zero waste perfectly,
We need a million people doing it imperfectly
Our products ethical practices – sourcing fabric + Digital printing + point de hand
We source our fabrics from MSME mills along with a few weavers in West Bengal. We use conscious fabrics and plan to add more sustainable natural alternatives soon. All trims are locally sourced and are made naturally.
What does “Conscious Ethical Fashion” Mean?
Ethical by definition is relating to moral principles therefore we strive to lead our company by these standards. We firmly believe that building a better community starts with companies making a conscious effort to participate in the betterment of humanity. We work with vendors alike that also lead by example creating a clean assembly line of knowing who made it and where your product is made. This mission has also lead us to discover a killer Kadak pepper chai & the sweet memories of éclair chocolate for our work highs, these essentials have seen us through many a sleepless nights.
What sustainable practices does Danba use?
The fabric dyes we use are low impact eco-friendly dyes. Additionally, we save scrap fabrics to make tote bags look out for this collection in the future. We are constantly sourcing fabrics with least amount of environmental impact.
Collection note – inspiration + Artist + interpretation
To create a realistic image of the comparison between traditional printing and digital printing here are a few points, To begin with there is restriction in no of colours you can use. Generally 12 colours is the most you can use in rotary printing. For every colour way all the equipment needs to be washed & cleaned thoroughly this not only uses clean water but also creates waste in form of murky water and wasted inks/colours. Space required to set up the factory is much bigger about 2-3 football fields but a digital printing machine can be set up even in a 1000 sqft place. There are other sustainable practices we would like to implement as our company grows.
What Social impact does Danba make?
We have also started “Point de hand” an initiative to empower small groups of women to be able to create their own path for self-employment. Currently all our hand work like hand embroidery + garment detailing is done by 5 sweet souls.
When partnering with vendors we inspect their workspace and make sure the basic amenities like hygiene and restrooms are provided. Working should bring joy of creating a piece we try our best to have like-minded comrades’.