10 Well Known Textiles of India

India has been well known since very ancient times for textiles. The roots of Indian textiles can be dated as early as the 5th millennium BC to the civilization of the Indus valley. For weaving their clothes, the inhabitants of that civilization used homespun cotton and used indigo to dye their cloth.

Posted On November 12th, 2020

Khadi

Khadi is a hand-woven natural fibre fabric, also known as khaddar, originated from the eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, primarily from Eastern India, Northeastern India and Bangladesh, but is now commonly used in India and Pakistan. Normally, the fabric is woven from cotton.

Kalamkari

Kalamkari is manufactured in Isfahan, Iran, and in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as a form of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile. In kalamkari, which requires twenty-three stages, only natural dyes are used.

Banarasi Silk

Banarasi Silk originally comes from the city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, India and is a fine variant of Silk. Saree woven from this fine silk, known as the Banarasi Silk Saree, is popular throughout India and worldwide. The saris are known for their gold and silver brocade or zari, fine silk and opulent embroidery and are among the finest saris in India.

Chikankari

Chikan is a traditional style of embroidery from Lucknow, India. The term means embroidery, simply translated, and it is one of Lucknow's best-known forms of textile decoration. The local chikan market is primarily in the town of Chowk, Lucknow.

Sambalpuri

The fabrics of Sambalpuri represent an initial craft style known as Bandha. Using a tie-dye technique, Bandha fabric is made. To avoid dyes from being ingested, the yarns are bound according to the desired shapes and then dyed. 'Bandha' is the name of the yarn or group of yarns produced in this way.

Ikat

Ikat is a technique of dyeing used to pattern textiles that resists dyeing on the yarns until the cloth is dyed and weaved. The resistance is developed in ikat by joining individual yarns or yarn bundles with a tight wrapping added in the desired pattern. The yarns are painted, then.

Chanderi

Chanderi is a century-old weaving technique that creates three kinds of fabric: Chanderi silk cotton, pure silk and Chanderi Cotton, renowned for its glossy clarity and sheer texture. The beauty of the Chanderi cloth lies in the beautiful patterns decorated with the thread.

Paithani

Paithani is a sari formed from zari and silk. It is a simple weave, according to embroidery principles of weft figuring patterns. Paithanis historically had a coloured field of cotton muslin that also contained substantial additional zari patterning. Silk areas, however, were still woven in the 19th century.

Patola

Patola is a double ikat woven sari manufactured in Patan, Gujarat, India, traditionally made of silk. The plural form is the word patola; the singular is patola. Once worn only by those belonging to royal and aristocratic families, they are very pricey. Among those who can afford the high rates, these saris are common.

Pashmina

Pashmina applies to the animal-hair fibre that forms the downy undercoat of the Changthangi goat, a fine variant of spun lambswool. In Persian, the term pashm means "wool," but in Kashmir, pashm refers to the raw unspun wool of domesticated Changthangi goats.