YOGA AND FITNESS PANTS
Harem Pants, Diwali & The Footprint We Leave
A story about Diwali, an uncut cloth and what we leave behind.
You know that evening before Diwali by its smell first. A clean home, ghee, marigold, wet chalk and the kitchen already ahead of schedule.
And at some door, a small pair of footprints, pressed in rice or vermilion, toes pointing in. Someone spent twenty careful minutes on the curve of that heel. It is how Lakshmi is welcomed: on foot, invited, leaving prosperity behind wherever she steps. We take so much care over this footprint. We sweep for it, paint for it, light a hundred lamps so she can find her way.
But there’s another footprint, and nobody paints that one. It’s what’s left when the diyas burn out, the crackers go quiet, and the wrapping paper fills the bin.
This is a story about a piece of cloth. It starts at the door.
Before the shape, there was a cloth
Before there was a pattern there was an uncut rectangular piece of cloth, unstitched, wrapped around the waist, pleated in the front and the other end drawn between the legs and tucked in behind. That’s the whole garment.
It had a knot instead of a zip, and a sash instead of a belt. One cloth, fitted by the person wearing it, nothing trimmed away, nothing thrown out.
It was never a fashion decision. It was a weather decision.
Think of what the day asked of a body. Sitting cross-legged while eating on the floor, squatting at the well to draw water, climbing a cart. In the heat, in the monsoon, in the long afternoon before evening aarti. A garment had to move with all of it, and let air through while it did.
Then there’s what it didn’t leave behind. No offcuts on the cutting room floor, because there was no cutting. The cloth you started with was the cloth you ended with. When it wore thin, it became a duster, a cradle, a lining or something else.
One cloth had a hundred lives.
There is something quietly modern about that old idea of zero waste clothing. Somewhere along the way, a second idea arrived.
Not a wrapped cloth this time, but a stitched one. The salwar: pleated through the waist, cut full through the leg, drawn in at the ankle. In its Pathani form it is generous to the point of drama, a baggy, drop-crotch shape with deep pleats that gather into a long oval at the ankle.
Then the wardrobe narrowed. Slim, stitched trousers became the default, and both traditions slipped into weddings, festivals and village mornings. It became something you wore on special days, not every day.
But the two ideas never really disagreed. They just hadn’t met yet.
Where two shapes meet
So we asked: what if the two met?
The Air(em) pants, our take on cotton harem pants, keep what they got right. The generous fall through the thigh. The undyed oatmeal of plain cotton cloth, because some colours don’t need improving. And the simple comfort of breathable cotton pants in the heat.
From the stitched tradition, it borrows structure: a shape that holds itself without you adjusting it all day, the way a salwar does. But where a harem pant balloons all the way down and a Pathani salwar goes dramatic, this one cuts as a barrel. Roomy where you need it, rounded and calm, drawing into a hem towards the ankle. Closer to barrel leg pants than a full harem shape.
Then we changed what time had changed. The knot became an elasticated, adjustable waistband, which is still the oldest idea in the garment, only quicker. We added slant pockets, because phones now exist. A patch sits at the back.
It's still one idea: a garment that fits the person wearing it. We just did the tying for you.
The footprint we leave
Do you remember the footprint at the door? We stitched it onto the leg.
It starts deep festive red, bright as a fresh vermilion print. Then, step by step, it fades. Each footprint a little lighter than the last, until by the time you reach the back pocket it has almost become the colour of the cloth itself. That’s the whole idea, a mark that goes lighter with every step, which is how we’d like to move through the world.
On the back pocket, the Kshm logo does something odd. It comes apart. Letter by letter it scatters, the way a firecracker’s last spark does, brilliant for a second, then gone, then only the smell of smoke and the quiet that follows.
And on the side, a small patch with frayed edges, stitched with three words: Leave Nothing Behind. We left the fraying on purpose. It’s a reminder that things wear, that wearing is fine, and that the answer to worn is almost never “throw away”.
So it’s Diwali eve again. The lamps are lit, the floor is swept, and somewhere a small pair of footprints is walking into a home. We’ll keep painting those. They’re worth it.
But this year, maybe we should also notice the other footprint, the one nobody paints. And maybe we measure a good Diwali differently: not by what we gathered, but by what we kept. The cloth we wore again. The thing we mended. The light we left behind.
Perhaps sustainable festive wear begins with that small act of keeping.
The Air(em) Pant is our small attempt at that. One old idea, cut for today.
