Our Beginnings

My fascination with handwoven sarees began with my mother's loving curation of weaves and my father's penchant for bringing home a new saree from every state he would visit as part of his work with the Geological Survey of India. Watching my mother patiently, meticulously match her glass bangles, her bindi, her nail polish, her sandals, and even her cardigans in the winter created a lifelong fondness in my sister and I for the perfectly put-together nostalgia of the sartorial 70s, and yarrnsbybarnali lovingly carries on that magical thread of memory.

Growing up in a large joint family all under the same roof, with a young sister whose lively aesthetic continues to influence me even today, and inheriting a combined family legacy drawn from the diverse districts of undivided Bengal, the saree became indelibly linked to the threads of our everyday life.

We wore sarees to school, I wore a saree every day to my Rabindrasangeet class, we wore sarees for photographs and we saw sarees on television as technicolor began growing into our lives. We wore sarees to eat phuchka and we wore sarees to attend formal functions. Year round, we would wait to wear my mother's best handlooms on Ashthami and Saraswati Pujo. Later, as we joined offices and universities, we wore sarees to work come rain or hail or sun.

From Sylhet to Srinagar, I have, over the years, beheld & been enchanted by my exposure to sarees from nearly every part of the great subcontinent, and I continue learning & growing with this enterprise every day. It is, now, second skin to me.

The saree is synonymous to song. The saree is joy. The saree is a gift. The saree is an heirloom. The saree is the ripple of nostalgia across a silken sky. The saree is my heritage. And my heritage is handmade.

With love,
Barnali Roy, Founder & CEO