Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture collection by Jannat Gill, Sharon Sethi and Mallika Reddy transforms 500 kg of pharmaceutical and textile waste into stunning minimalist furniture and home decor pieces.
Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture: How 3 Friends Turned 500 kg of Waste Into Stunning Home Decor
Some of the most meaningful creative partnerships don’t begin in boardrooms or design studios. They begin at weddings, over conversations that wander into unexpected places, between people who discover mid-sentence that they share the same obsession. The story behind Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture is exactly that kind of story, one that started at a wedding in 2015, took a significant leap forward at another wedding in Thailand in 2019, and eventually became one of the most thoughtful examples of sustainable design coming out of India today.
At the heart of Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture are three women: Jannat Gill and Sharon Sethi, the co-founders of Daera, a Delhi-based interior and product design studio established in 2018, and Mallika Reddy, an architect and the founder of Cancelled Plans, a sustainable design brand built on a love for rejects and a passion for giving unused materials a second life. When these three minds came together, the result was a collection of pieces that are as visually striking as they are environmentally intentional.
How It All Began
Sharon was working in California in 2015 when she flew to India for Jannat’s wedding. Having recently left her job and looking to explore new creative territory, the two began tinkering with the idea of starting something together, initially sketching out a jewellery line in partnership with artisans from Rajasthan. But it wasn’t until 2017 that things truly shifted. Jannat had recently redecorated her own home and found herself being featured in an interior design magazine, which brought a flood of new leads for home decor projects her way.
Sensing an opportunity, she said yes to those projects and invited Sharon, still based in the United States at the time, to come back and be part of it. Sharon made the trip, and when the work began to gain real momentum, she made the move permanent. One project led to the next, and before long, Daera was born, a name that translates to “establishments” in Punjabi, a fitting word for something that was quietly putting down deep roots and would eventually grow into the Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture story the world now knows.
The Chance Conversation That Changed Everything
The Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture collection itself came together through another unplanned moment. In 2019, Jannat, Sharon and Mallika found themselves at a wedding in Thailand and struck up a conversation that quickly revealed how much common ground existed between their individual bodies of work, even though they had been building in different directions. Mallika had already been running Cancelled Plans since 2018, developing fabrics from various kinds of waste and turning them into clothing and accessories. Jannat and Sharon brought their expertise in colours, silhouettes and interior design. Together, the three realised they had something that none of them could build alone.
“This was when we came up with the idea for the collection,” Mallika recalled. “While Jannat and Sharon would be in charge of the colours and silhouettes, I would take care of the textures and patterns.” The division of creative responsibility was natural, and the vision that emerged from that conversation became the foundation of Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture as it exists today.
Where the Materials Come From
What makes Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture genuinely distinctive is not just the aesthetic but the raw material at its core: waste. Specifically, non-hazardous pharmaceutical waste, sourced largely from industrial areas in and around Delhi and Hyderabad, alongside textile waste, surplus material from billboard printing companies and offcuts from various other manufacturing processes.
Mallika’s background in healthcare gave the collection its most unusual ingredient. After completing her MBA, she had worked with a pharmaceutical company and become deeply aware of the sheer volume of waste generated within that industry. When she founded Cancelled Plans, she made it a point to channel that awareness directly into her design practice. The waste she collects includes tablet packaging, plastic wraps, shredded bits left over from tablet-cutting machinery and empty containers, all of it non-hazardous, all of it destined for landfills if not intercepted.
To date, Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture has prevented 500 kilograms of this waste from entering landfills, transforming it instead into upholstery fabric and design elements that sit at the center of every piece in the collection.
From Waste to Woven Fabric
The process of turning industrial waste into furniture-grade fabric is neither quick nor simple, though the three founders say that after the initial weeks of working through the intricacies, a reliable rhythm emerged. Once the waste materials are collected and prepared, they are handed over to skilled artisans in Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu, including traditional embroiderers working in the Charminar area, handloom weavers and textile workers in Pochampalli, who transform the raw material into finished fabric through techniques that carry their own deep heritage and craft.
While Mallika oversees this part of the process, Jannat and Sharon focus on the design language of each piece, determining not just what it will look like but what story it will carry. Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture draws its aesthetic inspiration from the Bauhaus movement, the early 20th century German design philosophy that prioritised abstract forms, clean lines and function above all else. The result is furniture and decor that feels quietly confident: minimalist silhouettes, subtle colour palettes and a stretchable upholstery that is as practical as it is visually considered.
A Collection Built for Tomorrow
The finished pieces that make up the Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture line span a thoughtful range of functional and decorative items. Lounge chairs, warp chairs and shuttle benches sit alongside chandeliers, pod lights and oracle mirrors, all available across India. Every item in the collection is made from waste, and every item is designed to last, reflecting a philosophy that sees longevity and sustainability as inseparable from good design.
“We wanted our designs to reflect the future,” Mallika explained. “We intended to create furniture of tomorrow.” It is a statement that carries real weight when you consider that Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture is doing exactly that: proving that beautiful, functional design can be built entirely on a foundation that treats waste not as a problem to be managed but as a material to be celebrated.
A Labour of Love With a Larger Purpose
Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture is ultimately proof that sustainability and style do not have to exist in tension with each other. It demonstrates that the most compelling design can emerge from constraints, from the discipline of working only with what already exists rather than constantly demanding something new. And it shows what becomes possible when three people with complementary skills and a shared conviction about the future of design find each other at the right moment, even if that moment happens to be at a wedding.
What Jannat, Sharon and Mallika have built together through Daera Cancelled Plans Furniture is more than a furniture collection. It is a working model for how the design industry can participate in a circular economy, one where rejected materials don’t disappear into landfills but reappear as lounge chairs, chandeliers and mirrors that carry the quiet story of everything they used to be.
