Divya Saini's Bodements launches first upcycled collection in Paris

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Sep 29, 2021

Divya Saini's vintage business Bodements has launched its first ever upcycled collection ‘Nilam’ at luxury department store Galeries Lafayette in Paris, France. 

Nilam is a 22-piece collection featuring dresses, blazers, kimonos, and suits upcycled from Indian sarees. The collection launched at Galeries Lafayette in association with vintage platform CrushOn, Vogue India reported. 
 
The collection is designed to celebrate Indian textile heritage with a mix of contemporary and vintage-inspired silhouettes. Each piece in the collection is unique and customers can choose any design from the collection to have made in a different print saree. Bodements also makes scrunchies out of fabric scraps resulting from the manufacturing process to reduce waste. 

“Finally, after many years of contemplation, procrastination and road blocks, I decided to go ahead with an entire collection,” Saini told Vogue India about the collection’s inception. “I found a trunk full of my mothers old saris. I started experimenting with contemporary silhouettes and the response from people around me was encouraging. After months of sampling, I started contacting second hand sari sellers all over India. It did take some time as I was very selective about the prints and fabrics I was choosing. Our first collection is mainly made out of silk saris. I just wanted the clothes and silhouettes to be so fresh that no-one could guess they were made out of preloved saris.”
 
The business has also partnered with NGO Green Yatra. For each Bodements garment purchased, the business will plant two trees.
 
Entrepreneur and stylist Divya Saini launched Bodements following a shopping trip across Europe in 2015 when she saw the wide array of vintage clothing available there. The business retails vintage clothing sourced from around the world on its dedicated e-commerce store and calls itself “India’s largest vintage store,” according to its website.