Zardozi

Zardozi means 'sewing with gold' in Persian. The craft arrived in India with the Mughal court in the 16th century and never left — adapting, deepening, becoming the language of ceremonial dress across the subcontinent.

The technique is patient. A pattern is traced on stretched fabric, then real metallic thread — historically pure gold or silver, today often gold-plated copper — is laid down using a fine hook called an aari. Sequins, beads, and pearls are worked into the metal lines. A heavily zardozi-worked panel takes weeks of one karigar's day, sometimes months.

Aratrikkaz works with two zardozi clusters — one in Lucknow and one in Hyderabad. Every piece we sell that carries zardozi names the cluster, the weeks of work, and credits the karigars by community. We do not machine-finish zardozi. It defeats the entire point.