Changemaker: Stitching sustainability into Gurugram’s civic conscience

A fashion designer with over 35 years’ experience, Anuradha Dhawan states her personal and professional journeys intersected a decade ago when fashion waste began troubling her deeply.

When she moved to Gurugram from South Delhi 21 years ago, a 57-year-old resident of Wellington Estate in DLF 5 believed the city would grow into its promised “Millennium City” vision. Instead, she says she witnessed “a quagmire of neglect, mismanagement and apathy”, evident in waste, dust, and disordered citizen-environment relationships.

Dhawan’s message is to be environmentally mindful, have intent, and follow through with action. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

A fashion designer with over 35 years’ experience, Anuradha Dhawan states her personal and professional journeys intersected a decade ago when fashion waste began troubling her deeply. This prompted a shift from merely creating clothes to critiquing the systems behind them. Her label, Anu PD, transitioned toward what she calls “honest sustainability in fashion,” rooted in daily practice. She began designing versatile, multi-functional garments for re-wearing, re-styling, and repair, accounting for every fabric scrap. The principles of Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, and Recycle became lived values, expanding into workshops, lectures, and collaborations.

These efforts led to creating “Around The Des”, an initiative connecting lifestyle choices like fashion, food, forests, farming, and waste into one environmental conversation. Its most visible project, “SWAPnotShop”, is a hyper-local fashion swap community that has held five editions across the NCR since 2023, diverting over 700 garments back into circulation with a target of 18,000 in upcoming editions.

In parallel, she engaged in environmental activism. Seven years ago, she became a founding member of the Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement, responding to perceived indifference towards the Aravalli range. Her work expanded to opposing amendments to forest laws and the NCR Draft Plan 2041 and campaigning against illegal mining, landfill expansion, waste-to-energy projects, and diluted environmental safeguards.

She has mentored hundreds, conceptualised a travelling Aravalli exhibition reaching 17 venues, and helped create “Aravalli Ambassadors” in schools and housing societies, alongside organising healing forest walks and collaborations with various institutions.

Currently, alongside active Aravalli campaigns, she works with national and international organisations on sustainable fashion, including a Global Sustainable Fashion Directory with Earth Day Network. Her long-term vision for Gurugram includes decentralised waste and water systems, walkable streets, efficient public transport, local food systems, restored city forests, and protected Aravalli biosphere status. Her message is to be environmentally mindful, have intent, and follow through with action.

Dhawan is a fashion designer and environmental activist who works on circular fashion, waste reduction and Aravalli conservation through workshops, and community-led sustainability initiatives.