Vibhuti Amin will be the first to tell you that she studies the intersection between art, climate, and fashion.

She is currently in the midst of her second year at Central Saint Martins’ Material Futures program in London (where she grew up, despite her brief stint stateside at our communal alma mater, Boston University). Amin credits the program with providing her with eye-opening challenges and opportunities; the two-year multi-disciplinary Material Futures course prides itself on cultivating the next generation of artists, designers, and architects focused on “anticipating the future needs, desires, and challenges that we face in the 21st Century.” Similarly, she describes herself as undertaking this project “for people and the planet” — said project being a deconstruction of every aspect of how and why we consume. 

Central to her artistic practice is an exploration of fiber, form, and the ethics of everyday objects. Her comforts of conquest series explores the colonial and ecological impacts of natural fibers like pashmina, sourced from Changthangi goats in Ladakh and handwoven by Kashmiri artisans. Utilizing 35mm photography as well as archival and material research, she traces the ugly history of one of the world’s most luxurious fabrics. British imperial trade, she notes, made millions off pashmina by erasing its cultural origins and marginalizing the indigenous labor which produced it. In comforts of conquest she also explores the complicated histories of other costly knits like cashmere, which was similarly extracted and mass-marketed from the Himalayas by British imperial trade. Throughout her series she incorporates microscopic images of the fibers which make up fabrics. In doing so, she forces viewers to question the power that luxury items and processed, harmful materials hold over our lives and our planet.

In another project, La Vie En Modulaire, Amin reimagines iconic Christian Louboutin red heels without the 40+ synthetic plastics, foams, and metal reinforcements that make up the heel of the shoe. Even beyond their ecological impact, luxury fashion items like heels are often collectable items, exacerbating the fashion industry’s sustainability and consumption crisis. Amin presents an alternative kind of red heel; one with several kinds of biodegradable and exchangeable heels, straps, and insoles. Designed for reuse and recycling, through her shoe she imagines a world where the focus of our fashion is sustainability.

At their core, Amin’s works aim to reimagine high fashion objects and materials with a focus on sustainability, resilience, and cultural memory. She can be found on instagram @by.vibhuti, and studying in the library at Central Saint Martins most weekdays.