‘Jamdani’, a word derived from the Persian, is believed to refer to flowers in a pot although the sarees may far predate Mughal times when the word was used often to refer to fine muslin fabric primarily featuring flowers and vines, the best of which was made in Dacca.
The term ‘Jamdani’ itself has come to refer to a technique of weaving where a patterned graph paper is placed underneath the warp instead of a pattern being marked on the warp, and each motif is separately woven into the fabric with supplementary weft threads thicker than threads used on the rest of the saree, creating the appearance (and feel!) of motifs grounded on to nothing but a light breeze. That motifs are ‘woven into fabric’ isn’t just a turn of phrase; each motif actually gives the appearance of having been woven within the fabric with a gauze of the saree’s main body over it.
These sarees of East India are traditionally in muted colours although in contemporary times, the aesthetic has been changing; motifs have been becoming less intricate and colours have been becoming brighter. In fact, some forms of Jamdani are now almost said to be dying out; white-on-white Jamdani, for example, is now almost only made in Tanda, Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh.
Although earlier made primarily by Muslims, modern Jamdanis (in India) are woven by Hindus too and are often called Tangail Jamdani, possibly as a reference to where weavers were trained prior to the Partition of India. They have imbibed the South Indian aesthetic to an extent and may feature rather bold colours and motifs, sometimes reminiscent of the Neelambari Jamdani which was once a less complex version of the traditional muted Jamdani.
Modern Jamdanis are also comparatively less expensive than Jamdanis once were: in the early 20th century, a Jamdani saree could easily cost 100 times the amount a silk saree cost. That is, however, no longer usually the case possibly because the finest Jamdanis of that time no longer seem to be woven.
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| Photo by A Junaid Alam Khan |
The term ‘Jamdani’ itself has come to refer to a technique of weaving where a patterned graph paper is placed underneath the warp instead of a pattern being marked on the warp, and each motif is separately woven into the fabric with supplementary weft threads thicker than threads used on the rest of the saree, creating the appearance (and feel!) of motifs grounded on to nothing but a light breeze. That motifs are ‘woven into fabric’ isn’t just a turn of phrase; each motif actually gives the appearance of having been woven within the fabric with a gauze of the saree’s main body over it.
These sarees of East India are traditionally in muted colours although in contemporary times, the aesthetic has been changing; motifs have been becoming less intricate and colours have been becoming brighter. In fact, some forms of Jamdani are now almost said to be dying out; white-on-white Jamdani, for example, is now almost only made in Tanda, Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh.
Although earlier made primarily by Muslims, modern Jamdanis (in India) are woven by Hindus too and are often called Tangail Jamdani, possibly as a reference to where weavers were trained prior to the Partition of India. They have imbibed the South Indian aesthetic to an extent and may feature rather bold colours and motifs, sometimes reminiscent of the Neelambari Jamdani which was once a less complex version of the traditional muted Jamdani.
Modern Jamdanis are also comparatively less expensive than Jamdanis once were: in the early 20th century, a Jamdani saree could easily cost 100 times the amount a silk saree cost. That is, however, no longer usually the case possibly because the finest Jamdanis of that time no longer seem to be woven.