When Chikankari wowed Hollywood!

Nur Jehan who is popularly believed to have
introduced Chikankari in India

There are references to the Indian Chikankari work as early as 3rd Century BC by Meghasthenes (he was an Indian ethnographer and explorer), who mentioned the use of flower muslins by Indians. Many historians believe that there were travelers who taught chikan to the peasants in return of water to drink. However, the most popular story is that Nur Jehan, the wife of Mughal emperor Jahangir, brought chikankari embroidery work with her from Persia and also taught the embroidery work to her servants. 

The technique of creation of a chikan work is known as chikankari. Chikan is a delicate and artfully done hand embroidery on a variety of textile fabric like muslin, silk, chiffon and net. White thread is embroidered on cool, pastel shades of light muslin and cotton garments. Nowadays chikan embroidery is also done with colored and silk threads in colors to meet the fashion trends and keep chikankari up-to-date. Lucknow is the heart of the chikankari industry today and the variety is known as Lucknawi chikan.
Chikan embroidery is mostly done on fabrics like cotton, semi-Georgette, pure Georgette, crepe, chiffon, silk and any other fabric which is light and which highlights the embroidery. The fabric cannot be too thick or hard, else the embroidery needle won't pierce it.

In today's day designers like AbuJani and Sandeep Khosla completely revived this timeless art form over a decade ago. They improvised chikankari  combined with mirror work, zardozi and several other art works infused a new life in it. From Dame Judi Dench to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan every other Hollywood and bollywood celebrities are flaunting chikan ensembles by Abu jani and Sandeep khosla on various international platforms and film festivals.

Lucknow Chikan worn by Dame Judi Dench At Academy Awards in 2006

Chikankari Embroidery

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. Well, I am a living example of this quote. Unlike most of my peers, fabric and the various patterns always fascinated me. So when I decided to pursue Fashion Designing as a course, I had the world around me surprised, mocking and mostly against the idea. However, I took the plunge against the tide and here I am, a design student following my heart and enjoying every minute of my first year college life. The best part of my college is my technical inputs class in which we are taught stitching, pleats, etc. It is amazing how we can experiment with fabric and come up with beautiful and never-seen-before patterns.

Well, we got an assignment in our college in which we have to do research on different art and craft, design movements, tribal and folk art. To help us in the assignments our college took us for the trips to the Craft and Handloom Museum and Delhi Haat, where I saw and got to know about new things like Warli Paintings, Patachitra paintings, Russian dolls and I even saw fashion accessories made up of sea shells.

Well in all these topics the thing that took my attention was "Chikankari Embroidery", because I had enough knowledge to choose it but not enough to call myself well versed with this craft. As a fashion student, I would love to explore and try new things with chikankari as we are vanishing our traditional art and craft , why not to explore and try new things with our old traditional art and craft.

As I am from Lucknow and Lucknow is the main center of Chikankari, I would love to do experiments with it and will try to make it look funky as well as retain its classic look.

I have created this blog to help people to know about why our tradition is important to us and to share my journey experience of this module.

If Chikankari excites you like it does to me, please drop by and don't forget to share any tit bits you have about it. 

Chikankari Embroidery