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"Chikankari" | Tensile traditions of chikankari

To look at a sumptuous book on Chikankari by Niyogi Books is to be drawn into the history of the eye of a needle.

Price:   Rs2495 |  6 May 2017 2:51 PM GMT  |  Uma Nair

Tensile traditions of chikankari

To look at a sumptuous book on Chikankari by Niyogi Books is to be drawn into the history of the eye of a needle.


Memories and images come floating by as if traced by a tapestry of intricate patterns caught in the prism of the intrinsic worth of human hands. How can we forget when Dame Judi Dench wore a powder grey coat embroidered with white chikankari in floral motifs with cigarette pants to the London Evening Standard Theatre Awa`2495rds? You didn’t have to guess it was Abu Sandeep couture.

Today, as both men and women wear kurtas, achkans and jackets with chikankari – the elegance and poise, the love of this Lucknawi traditional aesthetic is quite specific and loved for an Indian summer. Saris with chikankari add an extra ounce of elegance to the wearer. Author Paola Manfredi presents a magnum opus of  contemporary artistic fervour as she gives us images and research that gravitate from vintage miniature styles to a suggestion of the fascinating factor; as she deliberates on different kinds of embroidery that seize on the exacting technique, or the association with feminine labour that looked at work more as a pastime than a profession. 

The work in Chikankari as seen through stunning images reflects all these approaches and more. Manfredi fills our understanding with terms like “process” and “materiality” and invokes solemn topics like history, gender, the technique and the beauty of finesse and detailing. In the best images, we see the eternal power and beauty of the paisley and you are conscious of historical and costume concerns that overlap, just as they do in traditional embroidered samplers. It’s the angarkha and kurta borderlines, and triangular yoke cuts that frame a striking, serpentine swath through the pages. Manfredi has been working with thread and textiles since the ‘80s and is deeply immersed in the twin histories of the so-called women’s arts in Lucknow as well as Bangladesh.

Her opening chapter unravels an ingenious series of works that dig deep into the history of threading intricate embroideries, linking the magical realism spiraling dots and transparent embroidery on muslin/cotton fabric and placed within a context. She also positions an even more powerful argument about embroidery as a niche feminist medium – and in the many images given we see an explosion of vintage opulence. Manfredi brings us an echo of chinoiserie-inspired flowering trees hand-embroidered on tussar silk that are indeed more subtly luxurious. In a quaint way, it is the miniature paintings in the book that define the distinction between the fine and the decorative arts that belong to the past and the present.

This book signifies the truth of tradition and the uniqueness of the needle and thread which can stand in for the pencil and paintbrush alike, and  as well as for technology that has destroyed human hand displays that can never be matched by the machine.The author uses images of delicate wisps of cotton, threads on transparent muslin to personify the exceptional brilliance seen through  the visible needle holes, loops, and quaintly curious knots. As an essay of a few chapters her observations are indeed a nod to her experience in the Chikankari cultures; the text never obscured by the tensile delicacy of flowered threads and stems and little dulcet pieces. This book tells us we can rely on the charm of Chikankari embroidery to revive age-old crafts, in an age of the indignities of the pixelated digital reproduction. 

This book’s design also clearly states that some of the most interesting works reinvigorate the tradition of the sampler, a piece of embroidery that offers a historic telling.

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