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Aari Embroidery Aari embroidery, executed with cotton floss using miniature awl-like needles, was once the mochi or cobbler embroidery of Saurashtra. Almost extinct there, the technique survives in Kashmir where it began to be used in the early 19th century to embellish shawls. Shawls, for which Kashmir has been renowned for centuries, had become increasingly complex to weave, and expensive to buy, over time. By the end of the 18th century, they had generally begun to be woven in sections due to their complexity, and then joined together with almost invisible stitches by rafugars to cut down on production time. It is believed that an Armenian buying agent for a Constantinople firm, Khwaja Yusuf, who visited Kashmir in 1803, attempted to further reduce both production time and expense by introducing amli or needlework shawls. The male rafugars responsible for joining pieces of woven Kashmir shawls together became embroiderers and, to this day, Kashmiri embroiderers are o...

Narayanpet Saree Now in Telangana, Narayanpet is a town which, till quite recently, lay in Andhra Pradesh near the Karnataka border. It is believed that its tradition of weaving arose sometime in the 17th century: Maharashtra's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is reputed to have brought some Maharashtrian weavers to Narayanpet, who brought with them a tradition of weaving Narayanpeth sarees. Today, Narayanpeth sarees from Maharashtra are all but indistinguishable from the Narayanpet sarees of Andhra Pradesh. Contemporary Narayanpet sarees may be woven in silk, cotton, or silk-cotton. They have borders of between 3 and 5.5 inches which run along both sides of each saree, and endpieces which are about 60 cm long and tend to feature simple striped designs. The borders, which usually have zari 'ribbons' woven into them, are of equal breadth on both sides, feature a small temple design (especially when the sarees are woven in silk), and contrast with the colour of the (often c...

Chikan Embroidery on a Cotton Saree It isn’t clear how Chikan embroidery developed in India although it does appear that it came to Avadh, where Uttar Pradesh now roughly lies, in North India via Bengal in the East a few centuries ago. The embroidery itself may have originated in Persia and, after making its way to India, have found itself being used as an inexpensive alternative to Jamdani textiles: the Chikan embroidery of Dacca (in what is now Bangladesh) appears to predate that of Uttar Pradesh. That said, there is also a belief that Chikankari was developed under the patronage of the Mughals: ‘Chikan’ is apparently a derived from a word that means ‘intricate’ in Persian, while ‘Kari’ is the Hindi word for ‘work’. Early Chikan embroidery seems to have been entirely on fine white muslin in white cotton thread, with over 72 different kinds of stitches being employed. The embroidery of the highest quality could apparently only be seen from one side of the fabric, and generall...

End-piece of a Paithani Saree Paithani sarees are originally from Paithan near Aurangabad in Maharashtra although they are now also woven in Yeola, Maharashtra. In addition to this, Paithani-type sarees are often made in Gadwal, Andhra Pradesh. The city of Paithan itself is ancient; once called Prathisthan, it was one of the cities from which the Satavahana dynasty ruled some two thousand years ago. The other cities in which this dynasty was based were Dharanikota and Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh as well as Junnar near Pune in Maharashtra. There are tales that King Shalivahana (c. 78–102 CE) of the Satavahana dynasty patronised the Paithani saree which could potentially explain how similar sarees are made in both Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh although there doesn’t appear to be any concrete evidence to support this theory. What is reasonably clear is that the sarees have been woven for centuries; that they were the attire of royalty is supported by documentation particularly of ...

19 C Banarasi saree, Bharany Donation, National Museum Delhi, 2014 Oddly enough, despite now being coveted for their silk and zari brocades, early Banarasi sarees were not woven in silk. Although Banaras does have a tradition of weaving that appears to go back over a millennium, that weaving seems to have been of cotton. Kautilya's Arthashastra written sometime before the birth of Christ, for example, refers to Banarasi linen which is unsurprising given that it would have been cotton that was most easily available locally. Travelling in India in the 16th century, Ralph Fitch described the cotton textiles of Banaras while Tavernier, who made several voyages to India and Persia between 1630 and 1668, seems to have made no mention of silk being woven in Banaras at all. Some tales say that a 1603 famine in Gujarat brought silk weavers to Banaras, while others talk of a great fire. Whatever the truth is, it appears that it was in the 17th and 18th centuries, as the Mughal...

Rajasthani Ajrakh Saree Ajrakh block prints are originally from the Sind but have, for generations now, been printed in Rajasthan and Gujarat too. They were traditionally printed using indigo for the blue, and alizarine for the red. Both indigo and alizarine were historically extracted from plants of the indigofera and madder genera respectively although synthetic dyes of both are now available. In fact, in 1869, alizarine became the first natural pigment which was synthetically replicated. In India, Indigofera Tinctoria tends to be used to make the dye (when a natural pigment is used), and Ajrakh seems to have got its name from ‘ Azrak ’ which means ‘blue’ in Arabic. That said, there is also a tale (that sounds rather revisionist, it must be admitted) which says that Ajrakh derives its name from being set aside for a day after each stage in the printing process. Ajrakh may be either one- or two-sided ( ekpuri or bipuri ), and the process of creating it is rather long drawn ...