Ayurvastra: Medicinal Dyes Rich with Devotion
The Process behind the Colours, and a Remembrance of Our Nature Kinship.
Amidst the disarray of today’s world, there is still much beauty, and much to be celebrated – I deeply believe that.
Moreover, it is actually because of the very overload and chaotic everything-everywhere-all-at-once-ness of the Age of Information, that we may be losing touch with many things, buried in the heaps of AI slop, but we’re also remembering and resuscitating others that were near extinct.
Both are true. Creation and entropy exist in equal measure. It’s all a question of what we decide to put our energy towards.
Whilst in Rajasthan designing the JAI II collection, I knew I wanted to connect more deeply with the dyeing process. The first collection, JAI, for Spring 2024, came about very much on a whim (as those who’ve been following the Keka Bati journey since its inception will remember!). Whilst organic and plant-dyed, the textiles for that collection were already dyed and printed when I found them.
In fact, it was the textiles themselves, this gorgeous, ultra-lightweight, delicate cotton, dyed and printed so minimally and uniquely, that inspired the first collection in the first place. But that’s another story for another time!
I had begun visiting local artisans in the villages outside Jaipur who specialise in plant dyes when I started reading about Ayurvastra, Ayurvedic medicinal herbal dyeing.
Ayurvastra: The Forgotten Medicinal Dyeing Process
Ayurveda has been part of my personal journey for over a decade now. In my early twenties, it was learning about Ayurveda that first led me down a path of intentional health and connection, eventually leading to my work as an Ayurvedic chef on retreats. So discovering this other strand of the discipline felt especially aligned.
Non-toxic, natural dye is one thing. The concept of dyes being not only a means of adding colour to fabric - but also holistically beneficial to the person wearing the garments - immediately sparked something in me.
Nothing in Nature is static; every plant, every seed and every flower has its own distinct properties and is constantly in active participation with all it encounters. And so, of course, there is alchemy, there is symbiosis, in the meeting of plants and natural textiles.
Receiving the medicinal and holistic benefits of plants is not limited to our diet or skincare. In a way, it makes perfect sense that an ancient craft like this would exist. For our ancestors, the thread of connection between everything, the interrelatedness of all beings, was never broken.
The Veil So Thin, Everything Is Possible
I often get the feeling that the veil is thinner in India. The other realm, the realm of the unseen, feels closer, within reach. Things manifest more evidently - and with a swift turnaround - so much so that you have to be kind of careful what you wish for, or even think about… (or is it just me..?! )
As I researched Ayurvastra, putting together the little bits I could find about this all-but-forgotten art, I started asking around to see who in Jaipur might be working with medicinal dyes in this way.
Most people I asked knew nothing about it, telling me that Ayurvastra was either a lost art or a gimmick they’d not heard of. It didn’t take so much digging, however, or much time (this all happened in one day), to find the one person in Jaipur committed to reviving the practice.
Her name was Gauri, and she lived a five-minute tuk-tuk ride from my factory. I wrote to her online and soon had an invitation for chai the next day.
Chai was drunk and suddenly we were collaborating, on a very tight schedule, to bring the Ayurvastra dyeing process into a collection that was already in production at the factory.
Nature Kinship Woven Into Each Garment
There is an emerging movement, happening in tandem with the acceleration of the technology that takes us further away from our earthly ways, and it is a movement of remembrance. Connection with ancestral wisdom, a deeper listening to the voices of Nature. Ancient practices, crafts and rites, being dusted down and brought out into the light. And not a moment too soon.
I often wonder where the intersection lies. Between the rapidly evolving technologies of our times that perpetually flip the script on us, re-writing how we ‘human’, and the old earthen truths that are caked into our DNA; so deeply set in our very being that we at some point stopped seeing their hue altogether.
So how and where might these ancient technologies better inform how we write the future of humankind? Big questions that I could easily run away with, but back to our skin and the plants and the dyes.
Whispers from our nature-kinship. It is becoming increasingly acknowledged (or, put simply; remembered) that the skin isn't just a barrier between us and the outer environment; it is the largest organ of the body, and thus one of the main ways in which our inner world (biological, and energetic) interacts with the outer world. Certain substances can cross the skin, absorbed into the circulatory system, and this is thankfully being studied more and more.
A growing awareness around this is influencing people's choices around skincare and clothing. What we put on our skin, by way of soaps, perfumes, lotions and potions, is essentially what we are feeding our bodies. And, when it comes to what fabrics we wear, synthetic fibres are finally under scrutiny.
Ayurvastra was once so commonplace in India, practised in such a humble way, that the term for these practices is actually a late addition. There was no branding for a craft so ubiquitous with healthcare. These practices go way back, to cloth for swaddling newborn babes, and bandages for wounded soldiers, all steeped in herbal dye baths selected intentionally for their particular properties.
If there is no separation between us and Nature, then it follows that we are in continuous relationship and interaction with all that we encounter. And it follows too that we ought to choose intentionally, and work with Nature to have these relationships be harmonious.
A Craft Rooted in Devotion
There is always a mirroring that happens between the creation process and one's internal process (and by that I mean the process of... humaning! The process of endless unfolding and becoming). With Keka Bati, I have always incorporated that reflection into the production. All in, no separation – what's birthed materially is a by-product of what's being conceived internally.
In India, there is no separation between the spiritual and the mundane. The union with the Divine is imbued in every little thing; quotidian activities in the West we might consider meaningless, forgotten corners of public spaces, all kissed with devotion. The lack of separation is a truth that hasn’t been lost here.
Whatever a person's craft or work, there is a deep intentionality expressed through the dharma they embody in their role. It’s a richness that touches me deeply, and continues to inspire how I endeavour to meet life.
Whilst conceiving this collection, I was taken on a spiritual journey, the details of which too personal (but also... very much universal) to share here, but the result of which was a visceral meeting with, and imprint of the Divine in every encounter and every aspect of life.
So this is echoed in the collection itself. Before the dyeing begins, each piece in the JAI II Ayurvastra Collection is steeped in a herbal extraction of 22 Ayurvedic herbs that is charged with the Gayatri Mantra, for spiritual awakening, connection and protection.
All in all, it all comes back to a celebration of the oneness of things. As I’m writing this even, a full six months later from when I was in production mode with this collection, I am seeing how perfectly, how neatly all the seams were in fact stitched; how much meaning there was sewn into this process, and therefore the garments that are the outcome. I hope that the knowledge of what's behind these pieces means as much to you as it does to me. Because what we wear can truly be an extension of us, and of how we interact with life.
