Before I shaped a world around slow fashion, I was shaped by slow movement.

Mid-sequence. A still from an abhinaya piece — where movement meets mythology.

I’ve been learning Bharatanatyam since 2004 — not for the external thrill of performance, but for something far more intrinsic.

It began with the simple curiosity of a child. A new hobby. A chance to explore something fun with a new form . But over the years, the reasons evolved.
What started as a weekly activity became a quiet constant — a grounding rhythm through adolescence, through transitions, through the messier seasons of growing up.

In 2018, just before I began shaping what would become what T.Berry currently is, I returned from the UK feeling completely burnt out. I stepped away from fashion for over a year because of how bad it was. 

I didn’t have a five-year plan. I didn’t feel creative. I was anxious, untethered, and unsure of what came next. My body was humming with stress, but my mind was frozen.

So I went back — not to strategy, but to movement.
To the choreographies and rhythm my muscles remembered even when I didn’t feel like myself.
And slowly, something began to repair.

Each gesture (mudra), each glance (drishti), each expression (abhinaya) became a way to sift through emotion without needing to name it.
A portal — into mythology, memory, and often, medicine.
For anchoring.
For clarity.
For emotional release.

Today, there’s growing scientific recognition of what ancient disciplines like Bharatanatyam have offered for centuries.
Ritual movement — especially when rhythmic, expressive, and intentional — is one of the most effective ways to regulate the nervous system. It calms the amygdala (the brain’s threat sensor), balances cortisol levels, and supports neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself toward resilience.

In other words, repetition isn’t mindless — it’s medicinal.

And movement that carries meaning — like storytelling through the body — becomes even more powerful.

What’s remarkable about Bharatanatyam is that it offers a complete, multidimensional practice.
It builds physical strength through grounded stances and core stability. It enhances flexibility, complex coordination skills, and cardiovascular health through continuous rhythmic patterns. It demands memory, emotional awareness, and focus through its choreography and abhinaya (expression-based storytelling). And it organically weaves in breath regulation — teaching the dancer to sync movement, emotion, and pranic flow.

To practice Bharatanatyam is to engage the entire self: physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual. It is at once an arduous discipline and a fluid modicum of release. Precision and poetry.

Long before I understood this through the lens of science, I experienced it somatically. On the days I practiced, my body felt held. My breath deepened. My anxiety loosened its grip. The stories I danced weren’t mine — but somehow, they helped me process my own.

Even now, as I lead a brand devoted to intentionality and the practice of slow, it is Bharatanatyam that continues to ground me.
It reminds me that repetition can be sacred.
That story can live in the limbs. 
That presence is often built, not found.

Rituals don’t always look like candles or skincare.
Sometimes, they look like sweat.
Like returning to the same movements, week after week — until you remember how to inhabit your own skin again.

Your ritual may not look like mine.
It might be swimming. Walking. Gardening. Dancing in your room at 11pm.
Whatever it is — I hope you make space for it.
And let it make space for you.

Rituals Beyond the Atelier —
A founder-led series on the rituals that shape how I live, feel, and create — beyond the atelier. From ancient dances to silent walks, this is an exploration of the small, sensory practices that return me to myself.