The word “comfort” is synonymous with clothing. While buying an item of clothing, the first parameter we consider is if the garment allows us to “breathe”. This is one of the major reasons why we always prefer a material like cotton for daily wear.
In this era where we have almost stripped our mother nature of it’s resources, there is an urgent need to find new alternatives to the almost already extinct or in the verge of extinction resources. When we utilized almost all the fossil fuels for producing electricity, we switched to other means of electricity generation like wind power, solar power etc. Similarly, there was an increasing demand to find a material that could replace cotton. Foreseeing the limitations of cotton, Birla cellulose,a subsidiary of Aditya Birla group came up with a suitable alternative, a natural man made fibre – the viscose staple fibre. Today, Birla cellulose is the largest producer of viscose staple fibre in the world and has launched their own clothing brand LIVA thus ending my struggle to find the most “comfortable” fabric.
It was around 2013 when I shifted to the small town of Manipal known for its hot and humid climate to pursue my graduation. As the summers approached I was perspiring a lot and I was desperately looking for a fabric that would let me breathe and beat the heat. Living on a tight budget, it was also necessary to find a pocket friendly solution. It was somewhere around mid 2016 while going through a rack of kurtis in PANTALOONS store in Mangalore that I came across this kurti which felt very soft, "flowy". I immediately checked the price tag on the garment and saw that it did not even cost one third the money I was expecting it to be. I also found another pink tag along with the price tag with the word Liva written on it with white "flowy" letters. As I tried it on, I found it be as comfortable and easy breezy as it felt and couldn’t restrict myself from buying it . I was so intrigued by this new brand that I discovered that as soon as I went back to my room, I searched for it on my phone with my IDEA 3G internet pack. The search results came in quickly – it was a brand which makes its garments from natural man-made viscose fibre. As I read more about it, I got to know that it was a sustainable brand aimed as an alternative for other natural fabrics like cotton and silk. From then on, I have stuck to wearing only clothing from Liva brand. To me, Liva is like what solar power is to electricity generation – the best discovery ever.
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