Nepali fashion educator gives old clothes a natural twist

Meena Gurung is the founder of environmentally responsible clothing brand Bora Studio

Meena Gurung is a sustainable fashion educator and the founder of Bora Studio. Photo: Meena Gurung

Meena Gurung carefully pulls out the damp leaves and flowers from her bundled up fabric, excited to see what patterns play out.

The marigold flower imprints its yellow-orange colour and the crimson-red of madder leaves adds a new lease of life to the materials before her.

“People throw away clothes that have white stains. These don’t have a resale value either," Gurung, a sustainable fashion educator and the founder of Bora Studio, tells The National. "I also collect old waste stock from factories since a lot of these fabrics gather brown stains."

Gurung's botanical dyeing process requires no chemicals or any new materials. She embellishes prints using things such as avocado pits and pomegranate while creating abstract art and upcycling pre-owned items into a possession to be treasured. The art requires precision and creativity because it's impossible to undo a placement once the bundle is in the cauldron.

Inspiration to create such patterns “comes on its own”, says Gurung, who never plans or thinks and sticks to “whatever she feels at that moment”.

The printing art form, which she defines as “contact printing”, depends on whatever waste materials are available.

“Leaves come in contact with the fabric and because of the high-pressure cooking and heat, the pigments are released and the cloth absorbs the colours," she says.

“I grab what is available locally in my space and trust my instincts. I use onion peels because many stores discard them. I just try to use those rather than actually wasting money.”

Gurung's journey to sustainability began when she was still a student a decade ago, shaken by Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza disaster in which a factory building in Dhaka collapse with more than 1,100 people killed and thousands more injured.

Garments for several big apparel brands, including Primark, Benetton and H&M were manufactured there, and the brands were criticised for not taking action to support the victims.

“I was studying in Ireland when the Rana Plaza collapsed,” Gurung says. After the tragedy that devastated the fashion industry, she was required to do a case study that explored the responsibility towards the industry as a designer.

“What can you do to make it better one?” she asked herself. “At that time, I thought if I had to start a company then I’d start something like Bora.”

Bora is Nepali for a jute sack. It's an eco-friendly, sustainable material that is used locally for storing food. It also doubles up as a “door mat or a floor mop” when it cannot be used for storage.

"If you throw it away, it is decomposable. The life cycle of jute is so self-sustainable. That is something I want to be like," Gurung says.

On her return to her home country in late 2015, Gurung remembers how she had a difficult time finding naturally dyed fabrics. “In Nepal, when I wanted fabrics while shopping, fabrics were pre-dyed, and most were chemically dyed.”

She says she couldn’t trust what the local vendors were selling so she decided to trust her own instincts and experiment with dyes.

“I really wanted to do something natural. I decided if I can't trust anybody then I can trust myself. If I want to get things done, if I want to change something, then it has to come from me,” she says.

Instead she relied on books to expand her knowledge and research natural dyes, connecting with nature, travelling around the forests of Nepal and interacting with local communities to learn about different plants and species.

“Natural dyeing and botanical printing were like a lifesaver for me. It was my escape,” says Gurung, who launched Bora Studio in 2017.

Fast forward to today and it’s clear to see how much progress she’s made. In her workshops, often held in backyards or open spaces, Gurung plays around with her foraged assortments and her canvasses.

She picks out madder leaves, marigold flowers, dried cosmos petals, oak seeds and castor leaves, and places them on the surface below her, creating kaleidoscopic patterns in myriad hues, relying on her creativity and vivid ideas.

Gurung’s base is not a typical canvas but preloved pieces: faded, stained, damaged or old clothes — shirts and shawls, mainly whites, that she sources from thrift stores and factories.

But her all-time favourite raw material to work with is the invasive plant species bun mara (in the local language), that translates to forest killer. “You get a lot of varieties of it in Nepal. It’s available everywhere. It never fails, it never disappoints.” Gurung uses the leaves and stem to get hues from yellow to green, and dark green to black.

“My goal was to create a zero-waste product because it was a dream for me. More than a brand selling clothes, my intention is to build a community where people are more conscious," she says.

Gurung hopes to be an inspiration to others and wants people to know that even something small is a step in the right direction.

"Every little step counts towards sustainability, even though it might not be that much. It’s about starting the journey," she says. “Once you get started, you will get hooked and you can never go back."