Khinkhwab Diaries

Before a single thread is woven, it must be given its colour. And for most of Banaras's history, that colour came not from a factory but from a garden —...

Look closely at a Shikargah and a whole forest appears — deer leaping, tigers prowling, hunters and birds caught mid-flight in silk and gold. It is the most pictorial, and...

A single Banarasi saree passes through many hands — the designer, weaver, naari-fillers, dyers, comb-makers, darners and polishers of Varanasi. Meet the people behind the cloth.

A history of the looms behind the Banarasi saree — the draw loom and its draw boy, the pit loom, the backstrap and frame looms, the Jacquard revolution and the...

The old weavers of Bengal had a name for their finest muslin: woven air. Jamdani is that muslin given flowers — blossoms that seem to float on cloth you can...

A silk saree is the same six yards however you fold it — but the way you drape it can change everything. The right style can show off a Banarasi...

Tie a length of cloth just so, dip it in dye, and unfurl a ripple of diagonal stripes. This is leheriya, Rajasthan's tie-dye of waves. ✨ Fun fact: The name...

Some sarees are born in workshops. The Maheshwari was born in a palace — designed, the story goes, by a queen. ✨ Fun fact: The first Maheshwari saree is said...

On a Paithani, the pattern is not printed or embroidered — it is woven, thread by thread, like a tapestry, until peacocks and lotuses rise out of the silk in...

Embroidery is one of the oldest ways humans have found to make cloth beautiful — and few arts have changed as much, or as little, over the centuries. The stitches...

Most cloth is patterned after it is woven. The patola is patterned before — its design dyed into both the warp and the weft, thread by thread, long before it...

What 'kinkhab' and 'kamkhwab' really mean — a 'golden dream' of a cloth — and the three classical families of Banaras brocade: zari brocades, amru and abirawan.