Who hasn’t dived into their mom’s and grandmom’s sari cabinet, ooh -ing and aah -ing at the luxury of it all? Taking from our shared love of Indian textiles, we have come up with a new bimonthly series on them, for those who don’t know. In our first dispatch of the series, we wrote about the history and legacy of the shahi (royal) zardozi , and now we come to Ikat. In a bustling marketplace, sunlight catches on a woman’s sari, its intricate patterns shimmering like a desert mirage.
This is ikat, a captivating Indian textile where the resist-dyed threads don’t just capture its beauty but also whisper the tales of history and artistry. According to Professor John Varghese, School of Fashion, World University of Design (WUD), Sonipat, the oldest surviving fragment of ikat was discovered in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, suggesting its antiquity and early global reach. This particular piece was traced back to the Indian state of Odisha , highlighting India’s rich textile heritage, he said.
Advertisement A Gujarati patola ikat sari being woven in a loom (Source: Wikimedia Commons) For centuries, ikat has been used to create intricate, colourful patterns on textiles, often serving as a symbol of social status and cultural identity in regions such as South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, explained Prof. Varghese. Designer duo David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore, better known as Abraham & Thakore, are famous for having worked extensively with.
