IJOR began with a memory: a grandmother's wedding saree, and the way a room changed when she walked into it. A trip to Banaras turned that memory into work — keeping a loom running, and a weaver paid.
Aarti's first memory of a saree isn't a shop or a catalogue. It's her grandmother's wedding saree — heavy, gold-bordered, brought out only for the occasions that mattered — and the joy it carried into every room she wore it in.
Years later she went to Banaras as a visitor. She met weavers working pit looms their families had worked for four generations, and learned how thin the margin had become between that skill surviving and disappearing. She came home with something closer to a calling than a business plan.
I didn't want IJOR to just sell sarees. I wanted it to keep a loom running somewhere in Banaras. Aarti Gupta
Two years on, IJOR is a small label built around handwoven cloth — Banarasi silk from the ghats, handloom cotton from Bengal, and occasion wear made slowly — sourced direct from the weavers who make it.
On a handloom, the warp is held taut and the weft is carried across it. Neither makes cloth alone. IJOR is built the same way.
Pure Katan silk and cotton, hand-thrown on pit looms in Varanasi by weavers registered under the Banaras Brocade GI. A single saree can take twelve to twenty days. We buy direct and pay before the loom is set, so the craft stays worth doing.
From the hands at the loom to the woman who drapes the finished saree, the same thread runs through. Every piece sold sends work back to Banaras — one household's income supporting another's craft.
Filmed in Banaras with the artisans who weave for IJOR — the shed, the shuttle, and the twelve days that go into a single border.
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Watch the weavers
Thread by thread
IJOR launches with a single collection of Banarasi silk and cotton sarees, woven by four families in Varanasi.
Eighty-five weavers, 320 cities, and 8,500 women who chose the story as much as the saree.
Every IJOR piece is a small act of preservation. Explore the collection, and carry a piece of Banaras with you.