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Baluchari Saree The name ‘Baluchari’ is derived from the area in which the sarees are woven: Baluchar, now known as Jiaganj, in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district. Early Baluchari sarees were silk sarees believed to have been the creations of weavers who had migrated from Varanasi to Bengal around the 16 th century; these early sarees are said to have depicted scenes on their end-pieces not only from everyday life – everything from women smoking to horses being ridden – but also from the great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the Puranas. Each scene was set in an oblong frame on the end-piece of the saree, and each frame could feature a different scene; together, they actually told a story. In addition to this, the borders of Baluchari sarees often featured floral designs or figures, as did ‘butis’ on the field. The technology and know-how required to produce such sarees is now lost to us – unable to compete with less expensive textiles, by the time of indepe...

"Here are patches, Felled edges, Darned threads, Strengthening old utility, Pending the coming of the new. Yes, I have been mending … But also, I have been enacting A little travesty on life." — Hazel Hall Cotton Kantha Saree Kantha sarees are embroidered sarees primarily from what was once Bengal; the embroidery was initially a simple running stitch used to prolong the life of fabric by joining various pieces of worn cloth together. In this sort of kantha, the outline of the pattern would generally be embroidered and then filled in with several layers of running stitches. ‘Kantha’, a term whose etymology is uncertain but may be derived from the Sanskrit ‘kontha’ for rags, evolved considerably over the years deriving inspiration from a variety of sources though. It is believed that Kantha imbibed everything from a Mughal aesthetic (as seen in Lehr Kantha which features undulating wave-like patterns) to the English sense of design (which led to Holbein stitches, cr...

From the border of a contemporary Dhaniakhali saree Dhaniakhali, or Dooneacolly as it was once called, is in Hooghly, West Bengal, and has been known for its weaving in silk, silk-cotton and tassar, since at least the 17 th century, if not earlier. Dhaniakhali sarees, as we know them today, however, are probably a product of the 20 th century. Early sarees were off-white cotton sarees with thin, plain coloured borders called Maatha or Beluari Paar – in the days before chemical dyes were available, the borders would likely have had to be red, orange, maroon or green. Contemporary Dhaniakhali sarees have no such limitations: although they are still cotton sarees, finer than they once were, borders are now often intricate, the bodies of the sarees themselves are more often than not coloured, and (in contrast to the weft stripes which marked the end-pieces in early sarees), the end-pieces of modern Dhaniakhali sarees can also be extremely elaborate effectively featuring full-fle...

‘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. 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 ae...