Technique · Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Chikankari.
A Mughal-court embroidery worked on white muslin in the alleys behind Chowk, Lucknow — passed mother to daughter at dusk for four centuries and counting.
Chikankari is a quiet thing. The artisans — almost all women, almost all working from home in Lucknow's old neighbourhoods — receive panels of cut and tacked fabric from a master designer, with the motif lightly traced in fugitive blue. The blue washes out at the end. The work happens between household hours, on a wooden frame in the late afternoon, with the panel held taut by the left hand and the needle worked by the right, and good light coming through a window that faces a courtyard.
We commission chikankari from a cluster in Lucknow that pays per stitch-count audited, not per finished garment. Per-stitch-count means the karigar is paid for the bakhiya she actually worked, the phandas she actually tied, the jaali she actually pulled — and a fine kurta with proper density takes ten to fourteen weeks.
What you should know as the wearer: chikankari is supposed to feel weightless. If it feels stiff, it is over-starched and will lose its drape after one wash; rinse it in cold water and lay it flat. The thread is white-on-white most of the time, which is the whole point — the stitches read as relief, like architecture. And the fabric underneath is the second hero.
Vocabulary
The terms.
- bakhiya
- the double-running stitch that forms chikankari's spine — worked from the reverse of the cloth
- phanda
- tiny millet-grain knot that builds the centre of every floral motif
- ghaas patti
- grass-blade slanted satin stitch, used for leaf veins
- hool
- a fine eyelet pulled open by needle and held by buttonhole stitch
- jaali
- a thread-counted lattice net pulled into the muslin without ever cutting it
- keel kangan
- scallop-and-bracelet border, finishing edge of the cloth
“The blue washes out. What remains is what the karigar gave by hand.”
— From the atelier file, Lucknow