On Softness, Craft, and Dressing for Life

Pallavi is wearing a custom-made Buna jacket &  Fragments of nature skirt

I’ve been thinking a lot about softness lately.

Not the kind that is mistaken for fragility, but the kind that comes from knowing oneself well enough to stop performing strength. For a long time, I believed resilience had to look a certain way — efficient, composed, unbending. But over the years, I’ve learned that gentleness, when chosen consciously, is its own form of courage.

This belief sits quietly at the heart of Buna.


Featured here: 
Pastoral patchwork oversized shirt
Quilted hour waistcoat
Spring harvest dress
Ferns and fables dress
Botanical imprints shirt dress
Mogra wrap linen dress


When Clothes Begin to Listen

I don’t think clothes should demand anything from the body.

They shouldn’t ask you to hold yourself in, stand a certain way, or move through the day with constant awareness of how you look. To me, clothing works best when it listens — when it responds to the body instead of instructing it.

That’s why Indian silhouettes have always felt like home.

Angarakhas, Kediya, Pheran, — these loose shapes and gathered forms were never about dominance or exaggeration. They were solutions. Designed for heat, movement, long days, changing bodies. They understood ease long before it became a modern conversation.

At Buna, these forms form the base of how we design. We don’t replicate them — we reinterpret them quietly, letting their intelligence remain intact.



Cloth with Memory

Fabric, to me, is never just material.

It carries geography. Time. Hands.

Our handloom weaving happens in Bengal, where cloth is still made with rhythm and patience — where looms move with muscle memory rather than urgency. Our block printing is done in Sanganer, Jaipur, where blocks are carved and pressed by hand, each impression slightly different from the last.

I love that no two prints are ever identical.
 That a pause, a pressure shift, a human moment becomes part of the fabric’s story.

Perfection has never interested me as much as presence.


Featured here: Hummingbird Silk Dress


Tailoring as Care

Good tailoring doesn’t announce itself.

You feel it hours later — when a sleeve hasn’t restricted you, when a neckline hasn’t demanded adjustment, when a hem moves without asking for attention. These are details most people may never notice consciously, but the body always knows.

At Buna, tailoring is a conversation. Between cloth and climate. Between traditional forms and contemporary lives. Between the hands that cut and the bodies that wear.

Nothing is forced. Everything is resolved.


Featured here:
Lovelorn silk maxi dress
Listening garden dress
Serene forest linen dress

Designing at a Human Pace

I design slowly because bodies live slowly.

They change. They soften. They carry memory. I want our clothes to age with the wearer — to crease, to adapt, to feel more familiar with time.

Buna is not about dressing up for life.
 It’s about dressing for it.

For ordinary days. Quiet rituals. Moments that rarely get photographed but matter deeply.
 
The Choice to Be Gentle

Softness, I’ve learned, is not an aesthetic choice alone.
 It’s a personal one.

To live gently in the world today requires intention. It means choosing care over urgency, presence over performance, and honesty over expectation.

If our clothes can support that — even a little — then they’ve done what they were meant to do.
 
— Pallavi Shantam, Founder & Creative Director