Weaving Stories : An Ode to India

Like the artist paints his canvas, a weaver weaves the fabric. The process is eternal, slow, as Rabindranath Tagore says, “Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes. Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait.” The qualities of patience, perseverance and precision are the hallmarks of India’s community of traditional artisans and weavers and they give away a little bit of their culture packed with each finished piece at Buna.

At Buna, we are slow & swadeshi. Each of our design inspiration comes from elements of nature, art, poetry or daily life. We narrate experiences and tell stories through fabrics and each textile is made from the scratch. Textiles are first ideated and designed keeping in mind the season and themes for a collection. This is an extensive, thorough and ongoing process that continues round the year. The selected designs for a season are given for sampling to weavers based in villages. Production starts after the samples are finalized and takes up to three months for completion.

This fine fabric finally comes to the Buna workshop and gets stitched into dresses according to the design of the collection. We don’t stock but make to order. This way, we do not overproduce and minimize wastage. Each fabric that we craft is our investment of love, creativity and time.

Hand Blockprinting
In the desert land of India, the Sanganeri goes on in a sunny day, idly strolling away, and then under the nature’s cover he lay. A mirage far away makes way but a distant lore he hears and hums, lifts himself up and goes along with the wooden block to press upon a fabric, generations of tradition and culture.

At Buna, we have contemporized the traditional art of wooden block printing. Motifs are first designed and illustrated by designers, which are then carved to perfection on wooden blocks by artisans. This elaborate fine hand block printed piece of art with intricate illustrated elements sometimes in as many as fourteen colours bring you the vibrancy of Rajasthan. Known to have Chinese origins as early as 220 AD, the technique traveled to India slow & steady by the 10^th century. When you wear a Buna hand block print, you wear a process, a rich legacy passed down from generations.

Handspun and Handwoven textile
Gandhi spun the wheel to Indian textile revolution. It was the early 20^th century. The handspun & handwoven textile was reborn. The Indian fabric then gave the machine made British fabrics a stiff competition. The swadeshi handspun and handwoven textile came with a sense of belonging. Decades hence, we embraced the rich textile history and gave the post modern world of fashion, a slow touch. Our handspun & handwoven textile travels all the way from the land of Bengal to your closet. Unwilling to take away the essence of the fabric, we bring you the kora fabric in its au naturel form – delicate and soft enough to caress your soul yet raw and unbleached in dye. We welcome you to indulge in this blissful soul stirring handspun & handwoven textile revivalism.  

Jamdani
The Bengali combines his ancestral knowledge to put together breathable comfort adorned with motifs inspired by nature. Jamdani is a form of loom embroidery with intricate, opaque motifs woven over a fine muslin base. Muslin is hand woven from very fine, high-count yarns with a very soft and tender touch. The process involves skillfully fashioning and interlacing geometric motifs on the weave of the muslin fabric without any loom attachments. 

The Bengal skies, the bird that chirps on a merry day, the cloud that plays with the mind, flora and fauna in full bloom – have all been inspirations for our Jamdani motifs. Each Buna Jamdani motif has a story to be told – of travel, laughter, experience or nature designed with passion and love.  Traditionally called muslin, the art of Jamdani weaving, that rose to prominence in the Mughal era, remains to be the finest, labor intensive art designed to mesmerize you.

Chanderi
Many moons ago, the royals of the Indian heartland draped themselves in no less than gold or silver Zari woven with silk to form the sheer fabric that has even older origins. When the weavers of the town of Chanderi gave life to this new fabric, it got to keep the name of its birth town. We put together pieces of regal history and preserved the twinkling subtlety of Chanderi. Each Buna Chanderi travels from its birth town. The design process follows the sequence of ideation, illustration and sampling. We keep our Chanderi designs minimal and express through subtle details keeping true to our design philosophy – ‘less is more.’