BARI system

Forest within a forest.

Sustainability has become an almost redundant term in fashion industry's resolve to reverse climate change. In times where the terms gets wound up at every corner of luxury fashion, slow reverent stories seems to blossom in the humble dancing looms of Chandubi.

Forests in Assam are an indigenous occurrence. The communities that live within these covers are habitual of creating a life that is harmoniously in sync with the environment around them, thus creating a buffer zone from any invasive change that comes from the urban areas. These communities live in houses that are essentially forests with a larger forest. This Home garden or Bari is an organised chaos of elements that are essential for a thriving biodiversity. Approximately one-third of the Bari is religiously devoted to the plants that are organically occurring in these spaces. The manure from then cowsheds create healthy fertilisers for these plants like castor that are then eaten up by eri caterpillars. The cocoons that they leave behind while turning into moths are hand-woven into luxurious eri silks. A system that flawlessly turns by-products into a resources in a circular way with nature at the centre of the process.

As observed, The Bari system is a consciously followed self sustaining system that relies on Traditional Ecological Knowledge Systems that are perfected over decades by the communities that conserve these forests. These spaces also become the sole economic activity hubs for these communities, gifting us the world's most sustainable cloth.