Khinkhwab Diaries

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.

From the Rajput courts of Rajasthan to the Nawabi ateliers of Awadh, a love of gold and glitter spilled straight onto cloth — in a family of metallic embroideries unlike...

Some saris are woven. The Parsi gara is drawn — in silk thread, by hand, in a language that travelled from Persia through India all the way to the workshops...

In the hill courts of Himachal, embroiderers did something close to magic: they turned the miniature paintings of the Pahari masters into thread — on cloth that has no wrong...

Hold a Chanderi up to the light and you can almost see through it — a cloth so fine it has long been called woven air. ✨ Fun fact: Chanderi...

Some cloth is dyed in an afternoon. Ajrakh is coaxed into being over weeks — printed, dyed, washed and printed again, until indigo and madder settle into a depth no...

Long before a pattern is dyed into cloth, it is tied into it — thousands of tiny knots, each pinched and bound by hand. This is the art of bandhani....

Real zari vs imitation, and pure silk vs art silk and mercerised cotton — a plain-language buyer's guide to telling what your Banarasi is really made of, with simple at-home...

From the naqsha design map and Jacquard punch cards to silk degumming, warping, weaving and kundi finishing — the full journey of how a handwoven Banarasi saree is really made.

From the scattered buti to the magnificent shikargah hunting scene, here's a friendly field guide to the classic motifs woven into a Banarasi saree — and what each one means.

Zardozi is the gold-thread embroidery of Banaras. What it is, the threads used — salma, dabka, sitara, kalabattu — and how it differs from aari (hath-ari) work.

A plain-language guide to the great Banarasi weaves — kimkhab brocade, amru, tanchoi, jangla, tissue (ab-e-rawan) and cutwork — what each one is and how to tell them apart.