The Nani Project- How It Started
The nani project is our ongoing quest to give discarded fabrics a second life. Over the past 3 years, we’ve experimented with various fabric upcycling and manipulation techniques to create what we now love as the nani yarn. Each part of the process is completely done by hand, to be an homage to how my nani always knit her love into our sweaters.
We believe we can only truly respect a material, if we’re mindful about how we use it.
This project started with a simple question; what happens to all clothes that we discard? Offcuts from production houses? Even wrappers and polybags that we throw away? Of course, this simple question had a simple answer- they wind up in landfills. Having lived in Delhi for majority of my life, my mind went straight to the infamous landfill at the bypass, that is literally always smoking with fire. It's been technically "overfilled" since 2006 (literally 20 years,) yet still sees 800 trucks every day on average. It spans 70 acres, and stands 98 feet tall. Here's a picture just to give you context of the sheer size and magnitude of this literal mountain.
In our homes, textiles tend to accumulate quickly. Its a common tendency for us to look for reasons to buy new clothes- a sale, wedding, birthday, event, festivals, and so on. Though its clearly important to discuss the obvious and rampant overconsumption in our society, it is also worth discussing how us desis usually make our clothes go through a complete life cycle; from a brand new t shirt to a nightsuit and then a cleaning rag.
What the nani project focusses on is textile waste at the source; during production. These scraps are often overlooked amongst upcyclers, since theyre too small to make a new product. This project is rooted in the idea of textile waste as a resource rather than an end product. I began collecting discarded fabric and experimenting with ways of transforming it into a new textile material through slow, manual processes. The work involved cutting and shredding fabric scraps and then bringing them together through techniques such as hand spinning, weaving, knitting and crochet. Rather than beginning with a predetermined object and sourcing materials accordingly, I wanted the material itself to influence what the final outcome could become.
Nani 1.0 began by looking beyond textile waste alone. Around the time the project started, new government regulations around plastic bags meant that bags below a specified micron thickness could no longer be used. This created a very particular kind of waste: large quantities of existing plastic bags that were no longer considered usable, despite the material itself still being perfectly capable of becoming something else.
We began looking for these bags as a potential material rather than treating them as waste. A local hospital had a collection of polybags that had been rendered unusable by the new regulations, and we were able to take these and incorporate them into the project. Instead of allowing them to enter the waste stream, we experimented with processing the polybags into a form that could be combined with textile fibres and incorporated into yarn.
This became one of the earliest material explorations within Nani. The plastic was no longer simply a discarded bag; it became part of a new composite material. Incorporating it into yarn allowed us to retain the physical presence of the plastic while changing its function entirely. Something that had been designed for a few minutes or hours of use could now become part of a material intended to have a much longer life.
This reversal of the conventional design process became one of the most interesting aspects of Nani. Usually, we begin with an idea of what we want to make and then select a material that will allow us to make it. Here, I began with what already existed. The scraps came in different colours, textures, thicknesses and conditions, and each one carried traces of its previous life. Their irregularity became an important part of the process rather than something to be corrected and ironed out.
The process also challenged the idea that sustainable design has to begin with a conventionally sustainable material. The polybags were, after all, plastic. Their inclusion was not about presenting plastic as an environmentally friendly material, but about asking a different question: if a material already exists, what happens when we extend its life instead of producing something new or sending it directly to landfill?
This became central to the philosophy of Nani. Sustainability, in the project, was less about finding a single perfect material and more about understanding the materials already around us and finding ways to keep them within a cycle of use.
There is something particularly interesting about designing with materials that already have a history. A new textile begins its life with the designer, but a discarded one arrives carrying traces of its previous use. The softness of an old fabric, its faded colour, a seam, a crease or even the slight irregularities created during processing can remain visible in its new form. Rather than erasing these traces in the pursuit of perfection, Nani treats them as evidence of the material's journey.
This also made the project deeply connected to the idea of craft. The processes involved are slow and manual, requiring time and attention to transform materials that would otherwise be considered insignificant. The act of making becomes a way of understanding the material. Instead of simply manufacturing an object from a predetermined resource, the process involves observing, experimenting, adapting and responding.
For me, this is where Nani moves beyond being an upcycling project. It is an exploration of our relationship with materials and the systems that determine when something is considered valuable or worthless. A regulation can suddenly make thousands of existing plastic bags unusable. A garment can become waste simply because it is no longer fashionable or wearable. A fabric scrap can be discarded because it is too small to fit into a conventional pattern. In each case, the material itself has not necessarily become useless; our relationship with it has changed.
Nani asks what happens when we change that relationship again.
The project is ultimately about extending the life of materials through craft, experimentation and imagination. It is a reminder that innovation does not always have to mean creating something entirely new. Sometimes, it can mean looking at something that has already been made, already been used and already been discarded, and finding another possibility within it.
For me, Nani is an exercise in looking twice: at the things we inherit, the things we consume, and especially the things we are about to throw away. Because sometimes the most interesting material is not the one we haven't discovered yet, but the one we've already decided we don't need.
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