Disobedience, a Chennai-based label, has cruelty-free footwear with quirky heels

How do you want your heels? At Disobedience, they prefer it quirky — in metal, and engraved wooden, and within the form of spheres, alphabet, curves… Anita Soundar, the founding father of the Chennai-based footwear label, needs to rewrite the foundations of fashion. Luxury for her goes past leather-based. Her focus is on vegan, cruelty-free footwear. “We choose upcyled, sustainable, earth-friendly material,” she says as we stroll round her unit in Ambattur Industrial Estate.

There are sneakers, in myriad colors, shapes, and sizes strewn round for high quality test. The ones which have handed the check are neatly packaged and organized on cabinets. Some of those have been tomatoes and bananas of their previous life. “I work with natural fibres,” she says holding up a pair of trainers which might be product of banana leather-based and hand-spun kala cotton. Anita additionally makes use of linen, hemp, cellulose sheets product of wooden pulp, and plastic like meals wrappers, chips packet which have been upcycled. She works with NGOs like Khamir in Kutch and Vidyasagar Chennai’s weaving division the place autistic youngsters weave cotton cloth.

Anita Soundar at her unit

A chemical engineer, who additionally labored with environmental tasks, Anita initially took up her father’s microparticle engineering enterprise. After round eight years she felt the necessity to begin one thing from scratch. “So I went to Italy to do an Eat, Pray, Love kind of thing but ended up joining a course at Arsutoria in Milan. I studied handbags. It was difficult initially as all the people who studied with me were fashion graduates. I didn’t even know how to do cuts,” she laughs. But on the finish of 4 months, her undertaking was chosen for a style present.

Anita realised that purses are usually not difficult sufficient. “It’s not a fitted design. So I started studying shoes in CFTI (Central Footwear Training Institute) Chennai and then went to NIFT, and after that did a course in Holland, Italy, the UK,” she provides. While in Holland it’s all about wearability and how one can make sneakers with much less waste, in Italy it’s about model, she says. Soon, inventive concepts began flooding in. Even one thing so simple as a leaf would encourage her. “I was told people are born with creativity, it can’t be taught. But I realised design is a process, you can actually work on it,” she says.

After 5 years of R&D, Disobedience formally launched on March 5, 2025. She purchased the primary set of machines to fabricate sneakers in 2020. Then, she determined to include textile into her creations. Exclusivity was what Anita needed, slightly than simply shopping for cloth off cabinets. Turning to luxurious manufacturers like Prada and Celine for inspiration, she observed that a lot of them begin from scratch and create their very own textiles. “I was also thinking of purpose driven brands like Toms. So, I stared working with weavers in Assam. At the same time, I also learnt weaving at Shuttles and Needle, Chennai. Following which, she bought an old-fashioned loom on which she creates some of her own fabric, while also working with weavers. In 2021 she made a footwear with linen.

The shoes from Disobedience span the whole spectrum from edgy and chic, to delicate and casual. There are denim boots made from recycled yarn, pumps in green, black, pink, derby shoes with heels… “I have launched 50 styles,” she says. The footwear additionally employs the works of quite a few artisans. For instance, there are fairly ceramic bows on a few of the flats. These are made by ceramic artists in Chennai. Karigars from Jaipur labored on the engravings on picket heels (product of reclaimed teakwood).

Since Anita is meticulous in her strategy, she did a carpentry course at Studio Clutter, Chennai, to higher perceive the method. “Carpenters were intimidated when I asked them to make heels. So I learnt how to create them and made prototypes and then gave it to them, they were able to replicate those,” she explains.

The sneakers — made to order — take round 45 hours to make. They come packed in picket bins, with considerate little touches within the type of further heel ideas, shoe cleaner, and shoehorn. “I always felt when you buy a biscuit tin box, the box stays even after the biscuits are gone. If I give a cardboard box, it’ll be discarded. I wanted to give something people could repurpose,” provides Anita, who’s now obsessed with a few items of stable metal springs. These could quickly translate into heels, she smiles. 

Prices begin at ₹15,000. For particulars, log onto thedisobedience.com