22 February,2023 06:37 PM IST | Mumbai | BrandMedia
Jeevika and Kanupriya
Kanupriya: aastey believes that women need to relax, do what makes them happy, embrace life and live on their own terms. It stands for women's empowerment and a celebration of varied choices and self-acceptance regardless of their body types, shapes and sizes. It urges women to make their own choices and not allow themselves to be controlled by society.
Jeevika: aastey's focus is to address two major concerns that women face in their daily lives - finding the right size and being mindful about the kind of clothes they wear. We realized that sizes offered by various fashion brands fail to meet the needs of women of varied sizes and ages, and are potentially harmful to the environment. So, keeping all these things in mind, we built aastey on the values of sustainability and size-inclusivity.
Kanupriya: The idea of aastey was born during the pandemic. While working from our homes during the lockdown, we realized that we were under so much pressure to be good at everything that the concept of "working from home" had turned into "living at work" for us. This led to the creation of the concept of "live aastey," which means to take it easy and live in every moment.
Kanupriya: aastey is India's first athleisure brand that is size-inclusive, sustainable and has its own signature sustainable blends, which makes aastey a one-stop shop for all women in India. aastey is not a brand, it's a community of 70,000 women looking to make a change. aastey seeks to make a difference by creating the most comfortable yet sustainable apparel, irrespective of a woman's size or shape.
Jeevika: The vision behind aastey tribe is to build a gender-inclusive community and try to teach people to be "fully present in every moment and take it easy." It is a community of 70, 000 women with unique personalities who believe that women should be able to make their own choices and live life their own way without judgments from society.
Kanupriya: aastey believes that the key to a healthy environment lies in a sustainable fashion. With this belief, aastey has invented 3 recycled polyester blends - aasteyflex, aasteyfirm and aasteybreeze. The making of these blends actively contributes to diverting plastic from oceans and landfills and reduces carbon footprint. The brand saves 25kgs of emissions of carbon dioxide with the production of one extreme uplift legging, which is equivalent to recycling 2 trash bags.
Jeevika: The biggest challenge encountered while maintaining sustainability in all our products is the lack of sustainable fabric. Since we came up with the concept of aastey, we wanted to build a sustainable & vegan brand to offer our tribe. The fabric required for making sustainable athleisure is not found in India, so we import the fabric from countries like China and Bangladesh, making it is a costly and time-consuming process.
