Chikan Sarees

Embroidered by hands alone, chikan sarees are one for the books, rivaling those done by machines. Every wearer of these glorious raiment tips off India's deep-seated heritage in divine-like tailoring. Its cachet has even diffused to ancient Greece as early as the 3rd Century BC.

Renowned Greek travelers like Megasthenes recounted the use of flowered muslins by the Indians to awestruck fashion connoisseurs of the ancient world.

A chikan saree subscribes to the age-old art of Chikankari, an intricate shadow-work type of embroidery.

By and large, chikan sarees make use of special colorless muslins called tanzeb, bedizened by the quintessential white yarn omnipresent in all chikankari work.

Saris or not, chikan embroidery is done by hand. Patterns of different designs are stitched using untwisted white cotton, silk or rayon threads on the surface of the fabric.

Embroidering chikan sarees exploit the vast compendium of possibilities of stitching in the ancient craft of chikankari. Great as they are, the stitches of chikan sarees or any other chikankari garment for that matter, are segregated into three types.