The extremely talented designer, Isha Punja, may have had her start on the Netflix show Twentysomethings, but now she is making much larger strides in her brand. Not only has Punja been creating beautiful clothing (and selling out consistently, I might add), she has changed the way I personally look at fashion. She’s a big advocate for the sustainability movement for both the planet and the people. In an exclusive interview with Her Campus at UCLA, Punja mentioned how her business came to be sustainable and why this message is so important to her followers and customers.
When I asked Punja why she decided to become an entrepreneur and how the sustainability movement affected her, she responded by saying her company was “born out of a desire to share the embroidery and [just so] happened to be sustainable.” She continued on to explain the two concerns that drive her business’s mission: environmental pollution and the exploitation of workers. After realizing that her company was “doing something that the other companies had to make a conscious effort to do,” Punja discovered that many fast-fashion brands cater to fickle, consumer-driven “microtrends,” ultimately dumping wardrobe after wardrobe into landfills as trends come and go. Additionally, according to Punja, labor exploitation in fashion is an “aspect that no one really talks about” — she emphasizes the human side, and the fact that this industry is bad not just for the environment but also for the global workforce.
Punja asserted, “The biggest thing that is driving me is bringing awareness to the people that make our clothes. Especially given that a lot of these fast fashion companies are exploiting garment workers in South Asia, and that is where my clothes come from.” She further explained, “We are turning the power to that demographic,” of workers.
When asked about how Twentysomethings jump-started her career in fashion, Punja mentioned that “there was such a large amount of interest in such a short period of time.” All of the publicity allowed her business to grow rapidly, but customers were not used to the turnover period required for her sustainable business to complete orders. Punja added the phrase “Everything that is natural takes time” to her brand, assuring buyers that sustainably-made clothes cannot be mass-produced.
Getting to interview Punja was an amazing experience for me. Not only did I learn the importance of her message of sustainability, but also the things we need to be aware of. It is important for us as consumers to show our support for businesses that are highlighting sustainability and representing their workers. It’s time to promote humanity over fast fashion.
You can find Hut Mentality on their website https://www.hutmentality.com and on Instagram at @hutmentality. You can also find Isha at @ishapunja!