Chol x Shama Kun launched

Paraa's fashion and product designer Shama Kun, the women artisans from Korail, the diverse models and performers on the ramp and host, Fahd, of Aloki, celebrated the launch of Chol x Shama Kun on Friday 20 November, 2020.

Chol is a new platform by Paraa for designers and artisans to think beyond the constraints of 'fast fashion.' Chol understands the need of preserving and pushing cultural and design boundaries, focusing on affordable, sustainable and hand-made garments. Chol understands the need for high quality designed products, excellent fitting of clothes, as well as being affordable for those keen to lessen their footprint of consumption but also wear amazing sustainable clothes designed and made in Bangladesh. 

Chol's first collaboration is with fashion and product designer Shama Kun, and is a capsule collection that is inspired by the memories of comfortable warm nakshi kantha blankets. For Shama, kantha carries memories, it's a piece of belonging which reminds her of the cultural roots of her elders. For many years, there had been this culture of layering old fabrics or recycled saris with hand embroidery to make kantha and transform it into a new look. The fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors to pollution in the world and so, Shama is doing her best to do her part to minimise pollution by exploring the reuse processes of kantha making and created a dynamic new look. Each outfit has intricate kantha embroidery on it by the women artisans of Korail and; old saris sourced from Begumbazar in old Dhaka and handloom saris sourced from Korotia, Tangail, are used as fabric layers. The entire collection displays a celebration of craftsmanship of Bangladesh.

Chol's focus is to celebrate the wonderful diversity of Bangladeshi people, often neglected when it comes to the fashion industry. Chol invited people of different ages, sizes, ethnicities and genders and from different economic backgrounds from Dhaka to participate in this inaugural fashion performance, none of whom had any fashion or catwalk experience. Some of the amazing models talked about how age is just a number, plus size is a plus, and beauty is different, and fundamentally, we are all beautiful.