Press Release - HeenaAgrima, Jaipur

HeenaAgrima, sounds like a single word but is a combination of two women Heena & Agrima. 

‘Heena/henna’ means mehendi, a colour giving tree, most renowned for its use on hands during auspicious occasions in south Asian culture. ‘Agrima’ come from a sanskrit word that denotes leadership or always on the forefront. As we combine the two, HeenaAgrima stands for Plants come First.

Launched in 2022 as a clothing brand by Heena & Agrima, HA strongly believes in the craft of Natural Dyeing. HA as a brand is more about the process and the journey than the product itself where they make clothes and accessories for women with passion & one of a kind personalities. 

The brand focuses on the fashion design and textile development with its own originality inspired from the founders’ travels and generational crafts passed onto them. The clothing and accessories are a culmination of the same. To control wastage, they have a zero waste policy focusing upon using all the katran that is used to make accent pieces.

HeenaAgrima is an amalgamation of the indian crafts and culture, their individual identities, travel, music, art, movies and their diasporic journey in India & Italy.

The Process — Fashion & Textile

India, from all four directions, has been tremendously blessed with flora, making it the land of natural dyes and crafts. From Kalamkari to Ajrakh, Dabu printing to Vegetable Block Printing, India in each of its corner has been filled with natural dyes’ glory, uniquely present in each region and culture. Their process centres around working closely with mastering this craft as they have been learning it from the craftsmen in India and the industrial professionals in Italy over the past 7 years. 

As an ode to this, they constantly work with local craftsmen . They are constantly inspired from historic costumes that were crafted using natural dyes and eco printing. They celebrate colours in its rawest of nature, through nature and by nature. Their clothing’s textiles are developed with various crafts such as Dabu, Direct Block Printing, Hand Painting, Shibori, Eco- Printing and Batik, keeping natural dyes as their main medium. 

HA shapes come from a vivid source of inspiration. Some being closer to our own land, from the glimpses of what their grandparents used to wear when they were young, some from the rich cultural heritage that they come from and some from their observations during their travels in Italy. 

They express fondness towards hand stitched textiles, stylised patchworks made by leftover pieces, using katran as a form of artwork and kantha to enhance the hand details. Their brand is based on the ideology of slow fashion and conscious lifestyle.

The philanthropy 

They both believe in growing and glowing with their community. Natural dyeing as a skill is constantly taught to young girls that join the studio so they hold it as a precious knowledge for themselves as well.

A craft never grows if its kept within so they give out their immense knowledge and experience through workshops to as many people as possible. Once it is shared, it allows people follow their own path with it and think of natural dyes as a colour medium as well as a time old craft.  

Founders — their story and ideation 

The heritage of Rajasthan is where Heena and Agrima have grown up. Best friends from childhood, they decided to work together at a very young age. Being the 4th generation working in this practise, Heena saw a lot of textiles since childhood and exposed Agrima to the same by sharing her ideas and family history in the same. Agrima comes from a business background so she tried to capture the essence Heena had imagined to make those imaginations come to life. 

That’s how they decided to team up with each other and travelled the world through the door of education as their base. Beginning from Pearl Academy (Jaipur) to Parsons (New York), they ultimately moved to Milan, (NABA) the fashion capital of the world. They learnt different cultures primarily through their own vision and ended up doing their Masters’ Thesis by learning natural dyeing in Italy to give an ode to their roots in India that is blessing them till date with such rich craft and colours. 

And that is where HeenaAgrima was named as one.