Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i Travel + Leisure India & South Asia

House of Prisca The Mumbai-based footwear brand Prisca creates shoes with the highest quality vegan materials that are kind to your feet. Prisca’s collection reflects both timeless silhouettes and innovative designs. houseofprisca.com Neeman’s This is the first Indian shoe brand to use natural, renewable, and sustainable fibres in its shoes. Neeman’s footwear not only makes you feel good and look good but also lets you do good for the planet. neemans.com Paaduks The brand aims to promote eco-conscious consumption. At the brand’s core lies upcycling, where it uses heaps of discarded rubber—from old tyres, conveyor belts, and rubber mats—to create stylish and comfortable footwear. paaduks.com PAIO With a simple agenda to create cruelty-free and conscious fashion with strong design elements, traditional karigars at PAIO carefully handcraft each product. PAIO is…

Paulami The label designs distinctive accessories such as neckpieces, earrings, bags, and brooches in a range of fabrics. It employs exquisite hand embroideries. Paulami provides a platform for women from underprivileged backgrounds to hone their creative skills and earn a living. paulamisaha.com Runway India Besides promoting ‘Made in Nagaland’, this brand showcases locally available materials, and supports women artisans who help in preserving and promoting age-old crafts. Runway India offers handcrafted jewellery and handloom accessories that resemble traditional pieces but with contemporary touches in the form of colours, textures, and beadwork. runwayindia.in ONEarth A sustainable lifestyle brand that crafts affordable plastic-free alternatives, ONEarth operates on the philosophy of ‘Waste to Wealth’. The brand makes natural and artisanal jewellery with eco-friendly materials. Think ornaments made of coconut, jute, recycled paper, cork,…

ANY DISCUSSION about sustainable fashion is incomplete without noting the innovations of designer Amit Aggarwal. Aggarwal uses recycled industrial by-products like PVC pipes, rubber, and aluminium sheets to create a wide array of stunning outfits in contemporary silhouettes. Aggarwal is also an avid traveller and calls travel his “biggest inspiration.” We caught up with him to discuss how travelling impacts his designs and why he calls himself a conscious traveller. Excerpts from the interview: How would you define sustainable fashion? Sustainable fashion is something that rises from the core of care and consciousness. It’s not just about clothes, it’s the way a person thinks and does the smallest act. You are known to use recycled industrial by-products. Did you always plan a sustainable approach to fashion? I always wanted to…

What led you to create Planet Abled? I never travelled as a child, thanks to inaccessibility and societal stigmas—my mother is a wheelchair user and my father is blind. When I started earning, I thought money would solve the problem. But after a series of bad experiences, my parents decided never to travel again. This got me looking for solutions. There were a few in developed countries, but each was focussed on a single disability. I did my homework for twothree years, surveying industry professionals and persons with disabilities. I finally said goodbye to my corporate job and launched Planet Abled (planetabled.com) in 2016. Which destinations do you cover in your tours? We operate in over 50 destinations. The most popular ones are India, specially Kerala, and Singapore; Europe is…

MUMBAI-BASED architect Abha Narain believes that a sustainable building is one that already exists. “Rather than constructing a new structure, which will consume a massive amount of energy, transportation, labour, and more, it is better to extend the life of an existing one through adaptive reuse,” she says. Since its inception in 1998, Abha Narain Lambah Associates (anlassociates.com) has taken up restoration and conservation of historic sites across India, ranging from ancient Buddhist sites of Ajanta and Bodh Gaya, 15th-century temples in Ladakh and Hampi, and medieval mosques, palaces, forts and caravanserais in Rajasthan, to shopfronts, signages, and street furniture in the Victorian precinct of Mumbai, and more recently, the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue. “India has over 4,000 years of built heritage that encompasses a variety of architectural styles. The techniques…

1 Celebrate Trees at Lchang Nang Retreat Ladakh Literally meaning ‘the house of trees’, Lchang Nang Retreat lives up to its name. The 25-acre retreat sits in the famed Nubra Valley of Ladakh, draping the otherwise barren lands in abundant greens. Picture bright yellow marigolds, dainty pink apricot flowers, soaring Siberian elm trees, and many more. However, it’s not just the landscaping that pays ode to nature. A canopied path lined with solar lamps leads you to an outdoor tea station, a herb garden, and 17 cottages—each of which is built in the local architectural style. This means concrete is given a miss; instead, river rocks, mud, and poplar wood make up the structures. While the rooms come with private sit-outs—some of which have hammocks tied to centuriesold elm trees—solar-powered…

Nappa Dori It is known for its carefully curated design aesthetic and craftsmanship that preserves artisanal minimalism and blends form with function. Nappa Dori interprets quintessential Indian sensibilities in contemporary designs with materials such as khaki and cotton canvas, and prints like ikat. nappadori.com Aulive A PETA-approved brand, Aulive offers travel gear in crueltyfree, plant-based leather as well as Pinatex. The products are made from artificial leather sourced from Italy. aulive.in Moon Rabbit This is a cruelty-free vegan faux leather label. Moon Rabbit offers timeless and skilfully handcrafted quality products that are functional, simple, and add panache to your everyday look. Funky tote bags, official bags, traditional wooden bags, and statement crossbody bags are some of their bestsellers. moonrabbitlifestyle.com A Big Indian Story This is a brand with a modern…

Mianzi The label supports a mission-driven innovative workplace where products are ethically hand-engineered to showcase timeless designs in bamboo. With every purchase, wages are generated for the craftsmen. Mianzi looks at achieving the goal of creating a brighter and sustainable future for the artisans and our planet. mianzi.in Sirohi Sirohi is a sustainable brand that advocates slow lifestyle. Their home and lifestyle products are created by skilled women artisans from marginalised communities in rural India by upcycling plastic and textile waste materials. The label aims to promote sustainability and empower women with its products. sirohi.org…

GROWING UP IN A sleepy hamlet of Sharjah in the 1980s, my siblings and I had the run of vast tracts of uninhabited desert scrub between our apartment block on Al Khan Road and a patchwork of villas scattered a short drive away—towards the Ajman coast. In our teenage years, when we moved closer to Ajman beach, Sharjah’s terrain grew sandier, with paved roads running out of asphalt at the mouths of surrounding compounds. Games of gully cricket with our Somali, Pakistani, and Emirati neighbours played out amid desert shrub and storeyshigh sand dunes. So pastoral was Sharjah then, that it was not uncommon for our neighbours to keep goats and chickens in their backyards, or for camels to come wandering onto our road. I once tried to ‘rescue’ one…

Portugieser Chronograph with TimberTex Straps IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN IWC has unveiled attractive yet sustainable options by offering watch straps made of low-impact paper-based material. ₹ 6,37,000 Submersible QuarantaQuattro eSteel™ PANERAI Recognising the significance of sustainability, Panerai has crafted a timepiece with a PET Green strap a and 72g of eSteel made of recycled materials. Price on request Aquis Date Upcycle ORIS These timepieces are crafted with Swiss-made automatic mechanical movement and PET plastic recycling process. No two dials are the same, therefore each piece is unique. ₹ 1,65,564 Seamaster Aqua Terra 150m Master Co-axial Chronometer GoodPlanet OMEGA This watch is a tribute to the partnership between OMEGA and GoodPlanet. OMEGA is donating a portion of this watch’s sales to a wildlife project in Botswana. ₹ 6,30,000 1968 Diver’s Modern Re-interpretation Save the Ocean…

How did you develop an interest in marine conservation? I grew up in Delhi and Bengaluru and had an urban, privileged upbringing. My parents loved to travel, and we would go on driving holidays to the hills, or visit national parks like Corbett and Bandipur, and these definitely instilled a love for nature in me. When I joined WWF-Goa, we identified that dolphin-based tourism in Goa was being conducted irresponsibly and there were no state guidelines, training, or awareness among operators about the animals and how to operate their boats around them. It is an industry that, in season, might see almost 5,000 people going on dolphin-watching trips on a single weekend. Yet, they learn nothing, not even the name of the animal. And the whole industry is focussed on…

In keeping with Travel + Leisure India & SA’s philosophy of going places with people, we check into the iconic Çırağan Palace Kempinski Istanbul to shoot with Bollywood’s favourite A-List star, Sara Ali Khan. The former Ottoman palace is now a part of the Kempinski Hotels, and is located on the European side of the Bosphorus, between the Besiktas and Ortaköy districts in Istanbul. The hotel also boasts one of the most expensive suites in the world—the Sultan Suite—that spans close to 464 square metres. On a balmy afternoon, I sit in the suite with our cover star, Sara Ali Khan, as she talks about her penchant for Turkey, importance of conscious travel, and her exciting travel calendar for the year. EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW: What made you choose Turkey…

THE THREE-HOUR DRIVE from the Nagpur airport isn’t the most scenic road trip I’ve taken, and when I arrive at Waghoba Eco Lodge, I’m still not in lush green woodland as I had imagined. This is shadeless scrubland, crisscrossed by beaten paths and fringed by trees in the distance. But this raw setting is very much by design. Waghoba Eco Lodge is the newest property of Pugdundee Safaris. The eco-tourism company now runs seven lodges across six national parks in Central India. “It was a conscious decision not to re-wild the land around the property too much, to maintain the natural bushland ecosystem,” says Swanand Deshpande, head naturalist at Waghoba Eco Lodge. The litmus test of responsible tourism is to do the right thing, not the more saleable one. This…

GETTING THERE Emirates (emirates.com) flies from Mumbai to Mahé via Dubai. STAY Anantara Maia Seychelles Villas This Bill Bensley–designed compound on Mahé has 30 thatchedroof villas dotted across 148 acres of jungle, and each has its own infinity pool.Doubles from ₹2,34,379; anantara.com Carana Beach Hotel Eight kilometres from the capital, Victoria, this beachside property offers 40 airy chalets. It is one of the best values in the Seychelles. Doubles from ₹44,939; caranabeach.com Domaine de l’Orangeraie The resort’s 63 villas are situated in lush, tropical gardens on the island of La Digue, with a stunning west-facing pool perfect for viewing the sunset. Doubles from ₹46,488; orangeraie.sc Four Seasons Resort Seychelles It’s located high on a Mahé hilltop, so rooms have endless views of the Indian Ocean. A private, powdery whitesand cove…

THE CHINNAMUTTOM FISHING HARBOUR is located in Nagercoil, in the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. As an aerial photographer, I’d wanted to photograph this beautiful location for a long time. I arrived at the harbour on a rainy day and spent a whole day inside my car waiting for the skies to clear so I could fly my drone. The next morning, I awoke earlier and arrived to good weather. Fortunately, it was Easter that day, and the photographs turned out stunning. This is one of my favourite images. —AKASH MADHAVAN ON HIS PHOTOGRAPH, TAKEN WITH A DJI AIR 2S IN APRIL 2022…

Rengé Sheena Uppal started Rengé in 2016 with a goal to create conscious, luxe, and everyday clothing for women. Committed to upcycling skin-friendly surplus fabrics, their clothes are curated to reduce their carbon footprint. What’s more, their factory is powered by solar energy. renge.co.in B Label This brand offers cannabis fibres stitched into clothes. Their apparel and accessories made of hemp repel UV rays, resist mould and mildew, and are carbon-negative. blabel.in Ed-a-Mamma A conscious children’s clothing brand by Alia Bhatt presents a range of thoughtfully designed playwear crafted from all-natural fibre-based and biodegradable fabrics. Most of the pieces are free of AZO dyes and plastic buttons, and come with garment tags that are made from FSC-certified paper. edamamma.com No Nasties A planet-positive organic fashion label that offers a wide…

asa Offering an array of purposeful products that are vegan, sustainable, and free from animal cruelty, asa makes sure to keep toxins away from your beauty routine. The products come packed in reusable cases. asabeauty.com Ruharoma Its handmade products use ingredients such as coldpressed plant oils, butter, clay, herbs, and botanicals. The products come in conscious packaging. ruharoma.com Kiro A clean beauty make-up brand that refrains from using any toxic ingredients, Kiro’s products are made with enriching carrier oils. Kiro’s make-up collection soothes, nourishes, and hydrates your skin. Each item is 100 per cent vegan, crueltyfree, and paraben-free. kirobeauty.com. Plum Using only plant-based actives that are carefully chosen and combined into a skincare formula, Plum says no to derivatives from ingredients such as honey, beeswax, wool, silk, shells, insects, bone,…

How is your hydrogen project coming along? The hydrogen project is exciting. I think this is bigger than Tesla. The application of the fuel cell that we have developed is outperforming other fuel cells that we have in the market today. This will allow us to access heavy industries. Cargo ships are the biggest polluters in the world today; what is happening to our oceans is terrible. Imagine taking out all those dieselpowered engines and replacing them with hydrogen fuel cells. You will have vapour coming out on the other side! Are you on track to meeting your goal: delivering a 400HP hydrogen car at Dakar Rally 2023? The fuel cell has performed even better than we expected, and we now have delivery of up to 640 horsepower. So, our…

GETTING THERE The Nagpur airport is well connected to most major Indian cities. Waghoba Eco Lodge is located 140 km (2.5 hrs) from the Nagpur airport. Pench Tree Lodge is around 130 km from Nagpur, and about six hours away by road from Waghoba Eco Lodge. STAY Waghoba Eco Lodge (doubles from ₹21,000; waghobaecolodge.com) offers 14 cottages, while Pench Tree Lodge gives you a choice between six tree houses (doubles from ₹23,000) and six cottages (doubles from ₹21,000; penchtreelodge.com).…