The Reference

Fabric & Craft Guide

95 weaves, fabrics, prints, embroideries and garments, described plainly — what each one is, how it is made, how it behaves when it is worn, and how to tell the real thing from the imitation.

Handloom weaves, region by region

Almost every Indian weave is named for the town that made it first. The name tells you the technique, the weight, and usually the occasion.

Kanchipuram silk: Woven in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, from heavy mulberry silk. The body, border and pallu are woven as separate pieces and then interlocked — run a thumb along the border and the join can be felt as a ridge, which is the quickest way to tell a real one. It is the heaviest saree most wardrobes own, and the one that gets handed down.
Banarasi silk: Brocade from Varanasi, carrying Mughal-descended motifs — butis scattered across the body, a dense jaal, a pallu worked almost solid in zari. A good one takes weeks on the loom because the zari is a supplementary weft, laid in thread by thread rather than printed on.
Blended Banarasi silk: The same Banarasi vocabulary of motifs, woven on a silk-blend, georgette or organza ground instead of pure silk. It drapes softer, weighs a fraction as much, and costs accordingly — the usual choice when the saree has to be worn through a whole day.
Crushed Banarasi: Banarasi cloth set with a permanent crush, so it falls in narrow irregular vertical folds instead of smooth pleats. The texture catches light unevenly, which is the entire effect; it needs no starching and very little ironing.
Paithani: From Paithan in Maharashtra. The pallu is tapestry-woven — peacocks, parrots, the lotus — with the weft turned by hand around each colour, so the design reads the same on both faces with no floats behind it. That reversibility is the signature, and the reason a Paithani takes months.
Chanderi: From Madhya Pradesh: a silk warp against a fine cotton weft, which gives it a glassy sheen and enough transparency to see a hand through. Light enough for a summer afternoon while still reading as formal.

The fabrics themselves

Before the weave and before the work, there is the cloth. Fabric decides how a garment falls, how it behaves in heat, and how much of the wearer it shows.

Pure silk: Reeled from cultivated Bombyx mori cocoons. It is strong, takes dye deeper than any other natural fibre, and warms to the body instead of sitting cold against it. Pure silk creases — a cloth that stays perfectly flat all evening is telling you it is a blend.
Art silk: Viscose or rayon finished to imitate silk's sheen. It drapes convincingly and costs a fraction as much, but it is cooler to the touch, loses body when wet, and shines a little too evenly under a camera flash.
Crepe: Made by twisting the yarn hard before weaving, which pulls the surface into a fine matte grain. Crepe has weight without stiffness, so it hangs in long straight lines and forgives more than a flat weave does.
Georgette: A lighter, more open crepe with the same high-twist yarn running both ways. It is faintly sheer, slightly springy, and it moves — which is why it is the standard choice for a saree meant to be seen walking.
Chiffon: The sheerest of the crepe family: light enough to float, with a very slight roughness from the twisted yarn that keeps it from sliding off the shoulder. It shows everything beneath it, so it is worn over a lining or a well-matched petticoat.
Organza: Sheer and crisp rather than sheer and soft — it holds a shape and stands away from the body. Silk organza is stiff and papery; the polyester version is glassier and much less forgiving of a crease.
Tissue: A very fine sheer woven with a metallic thread carried through it, so the whole cloth catches light rather than just the border. Beautiful and genuinely fragile — tissue snags, and it does not recover.
Satin: A weave, not a fibre: the warp floats over several wefts so almost nothing but the smooth face shows. That is where the liquid shine comes from, and also why satin catches on a ring.
Dupion silk: Reeled from double cocoons, which throws thick irregular slubs across an otherwise crisp cloth. It has body enough to hold a structured blouse or a lehenga panel without interfacing.
Soft silk: Trade shorthand for a lighter-weight silk woven for drape rather than ceremony — often a Kanchipuram-style border and pallu on a much thinner body. It reads formal and wears like something you can sit down in.
Spun silk: Spun from the short fibres left after reeling, the way cotton is spun. The result is matte, slightly fuzzy and much less slippery than filament silk — closer to a fine wool in the hand.
Mashru: Silk face, cotton back, by design: a satin weave that keeps the silk entirely on the outside so only cotton touches the skin. It began as a way to observe a religious prohibition and survived because it is genuinely more comfortable.
Net: An open knotted or knitted mesh with no ground cloth at all, so it is always worn over a lining. It carries embroidery and sequins well because the work reads as floating.
Velvet: A cut pile standing up from a woven base, which is why it reads as a different colour depending on which way it is brushed. Heavy, warm, and the usual winter-wedding fabric; it must be steamed, never pressed flat.
Linen: Flax fibre — cool, quick to release moisture, with a dry crispness that softens the more it is washed. It creases at once and is meant to; a linen that will not crease has been treated to stop it.
Cotton: The everyday answer to Indian heat: breathable, washable, and comfortable through a full working day. Handloom cotton carries a slight unevenness across the width that mill cotton does not, and it is worth looking for.
Cotton-linen blend: Linen's dry crispness and cool hand with cotton's give and lower price. It creases less sharply than pure linen and holds a printed pattern better.
Pattu: The South Indian word for silk, used in the trade for the traditional temple-bordered silks of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra — pattu pavadai for the child's version, pattu saree for the adult one.
Polyester: Wholly synthetic. It holds colour and pleat indefinitely and survives being packed, but it does not breathe — a poor choice for a long day in Indian heat, and a good one for travel.
Zari: The metallic thread that makes a border. Real zari is silver wire gilded with gold and wound onto a silk core; tested zari is a controlled alloy; the common modern kind is metallised polyester film. Real zari darkens with age, imitation zari flakes.
Copper zari: Zari drawn with a copper cast rather than the usual gold or silver, giving a warmer, dustier metallic that sits better against earth tones and rust shades than yellow gold does.

Dyeing and printing crafts

Everything here happens to the cloth after it is woven — tied, folded, painted or blocked by hand. The irregularity is the proof of the method.

Bandhani: Gujarati and Rajasthani resist dyeing: thousands of tiny points of cloth are pinched and tied with thread before the piece goes into the dye, and each tie leaves an undyed dot. The dots are counted and named in patterns, and a hand-tied bandhani arrives still faintly puckered — opening it out is meant to be the buyer's job.
Leheriya: The cloth is rolled diagonally into a rope and bound at intervals before dyeing, which leaves the finished piece striped in waves running corner to corner. The name comes from lehar, a wave.
Gharchola: A bandhani grid: the field is divided by woven zari or thread lines into squares, and each square is filled with tied motifs. Traditionally the Gujarati bridal cloth, and traditionally red and gold.
Shibori: The Japanese family of resist techniques — folding, clamping, stitching, pole-wrapping — now widely worked on Indian silks. It produces softer, more organic blooms of colour than bandhani's precise dots.
Kalamkari: Literally pen-work. The Srikalahasti tradition is drawn freehand with a bamboo pen in natural mordants and dyes, usually narrating something; the Machilipatnam tradition is block-printed. Hand-painted kalamkari shows visible variation between one repeat and the next — printed kalamkari does not.
Block print: Hand-carved wooden blocks, one per colour, struck along the cloth by eye. Look at where two repeats meet: a slight overlap or a small gap is the signature of hand blocking, and screen printing never has it.
Digital print: The design is printed straight onto the cloth from a file, so it can carry photographic detail and unlimited colours with no repeat at all. Sharp and inexpensive; it has no relief and no irregularity, which is exactly how it is recognised.
Batik: Wax is drawn or stamped onto the cloth as a resist, the piece is dyed, and the wax is then boiled out. The fine crackle that appears where the wax broke before dyeing is the effect people buy batik for.

Embroidery and surface work

Work added on top of a finished cloth, by hand or by machine. What is being paid for is almost always the hours, not the materials.

Zardosi: Metal wire, coiled and cut, couched onto the cloth with a hook while the fabric is held stretched on a frame. It is the heaviest of the Indian embroideries and traditionally the courtly one; a zardosi pallu can weigh more than the rest of the saree.
Gota patti: Rajasthani applique: flat woven ribbon of gold or silver is cut into leaves and petals and stitched down at the edges. It gives a bold metallic shape at a fraction of zardosi's weight, which is why it dominates haldi and mehendi wear.
Aari work: Worked with a hooked needle — the aari — that pulls a continuous chain stitch from below the stretched cloth. It is fast in skilled hands, and it is the base technique underneath most bridal beadwork.
Resham work: Embroidery in coloured silk floss rather than metal. It sits flat, holds fine detail, and is what makes a piece read as embroidered rather than encrusted.
Kantha: A running stitch worked in rows across the whole cloth, originally used in Bengal to quilt worn-out saris together. On tussar it puckers the ground very slightly, and that ripple is the point of it.
Sequins and cut-bead work: Flat discs and chopped glass or metal beads, stitched down one at a time. Cut beads throw light in points rather than sheets, so a cut-bead border reads sharper than a sequinned one under indoor lighting.
Crystal work: Faceted glass or resin stones set into the cloth with claws or with adhesive. Set stones survive the wardrobe; glued stones do not survive dry cleaning, which is worth knowing before the second wearing.
Mirror work: Small mirrors held to the cloth by a cage of embroidery worked around the rim — the thread does the holding, there is no glue anywhere. Gujarati and Rajasthani, and heavier than it looks.
Cutwork: The ground fabric is cut away between the motifs and the raw edges finished with stitch, leaving the design standing in open air. Delicate, and the reason a cutwork piece must be stored flat.
Machine embroidery: Worked by a computer-guided head from a digitised file. It is even, repeatable and inexpensive, and it announces itself by being perfectly identical from one repeat to the next — hand work never is.

Woven patterns and motifs

The names for what a pattern is doing, rather than what it is made of. Useful when a description says buti jaal and means something precise by it.

Buti: A small isolated motif scattered at intervals across an otherwise plain field — the commonest way to give a body some interest without weight. The larger version is a buta.
Jaal: A continuous connected net of motifs covering the whole field, rather than isolated ones. A jaal takes far longer on the loom than butis and is priced accordingly.
Antique brocade: Brocade woven with a deliberately dulled, oxidised-looking zari instead of bright gold. It reads older and warmer, and it photographs better than bright zari under warm light.
Woven checks: The check is built into the weave from coloured warp and weft rather than printed on top, so it is identical on both faces and cannot wear off. Dupion checks are crisp and slubbed; kora dupion checks add an undegummed, papery ground.
Temple border: The row of solid triangles running along a South Indian border, named for the gopuram silhouette. It is woven as part of the border itself, which is why it never quite lines up with a printed imitation.
Pleated silk: Silk permanently heat-set into fine accordion folds. It hangs in a narrow column and springs back into shape, and it must never be pressed flat or the pleats are gone for good.
Crushed fabric: Cloth permanently set with an irregular crush. Beyond the texture it is genuinely practical — a crushed piece cannot look creased, so it travels better than anything else in the wardrobe.

The garments, plainly described

What the trade names actually refer to, for anyone buying their first one.

Saree: A single uncut length, usually five and a half to six and a half metres, draped rather than tailored. The decorated end that goes over the shoulder is the pallu; the plain running length is the body.
Ready-to-wear saree: Pre-pleated and stitched to a waistband, so it goes on like a skirt and the pallu is already fixed. It removes the draping entirely, which is the whole reason it exists.
Blouse: The fitted upper garment worn with a saree or a lehenga. A saree usually ships with an unstitched blouse piece of matching fabric — around 0.8 metres — meant to be tailored to the wearer.
Jacket blouse: A blouse cut long and open at the front like a short jacket, worn over the drape rather than under it. It covers more and reads more structured than a conventional choli.
Lehenga choli: A long flared skirt, a fitted blouse and a dupatta, worn as a set. The flare is measured in kalis — the number of tapered panels sewn together — and more kalis means more sweep and more cloth.
Pavada: The South Indian long skirt worn by girls with a short blouse and a half-saree, most often in silk for festivals and for the half-saree ceremony.
Salwar kameez: A tunic (kameez) over loose trousers (salwar), with a dupatta. Sold either unstitched, as three coordinated cloth pieces for a tailor, or ready to wear.
Anarkali: A kameez fitted close through the bust and then released into a full floor-length flare from a high yoke. It is the most formal silhouette in the salwar family, and the least forgiving of a bad hem.
Kurti: A shorter tunic, hip to knee length, worn over trousers, palazzos or jeans. The everyday end of the wardrobe, and the piece that gets worn most.
Indo-western: Anything that puts an Indian drape or motif onto a Western cut — a saree gown, a cape over a lehenga, a dhoti with a structured jacket. Bought for the events that do not tell you what to wear.
Gown: A single floor-length garment, unbroken from shoulder to hem. In an Indian context it usually carries the same embroidery vocabulary as a lehenga, without the separate skirt and blouse.
Dupatta, stole and scarf: The same idea at three lengths. A dupatta is the long wide one that completes a suit or a lehenga; a stole is narrower, worn for warmth or for line; a scarf is shorter again.
Unstitched suit: Three coordinated pieces — kameez fabric, salwar fabric, dupatta — sold as cloth for a tailor. It costs less than ready-to-wear and it fits, which is why the trade has never managed to kill it off.
Potli: A soft drawstring pouch gathered at the top, usually made from the same fabric family as the outfit. It holds almost nothing, and is carried anyway.
Dhoti set, kurta and bandi: Menswear: a kurta worn over a draped dhoti or over churidar, sometimes finished with a bandi — the short sleeveless jacket that sits over the kurta for formal occasions.

What gets worn when

An Indian wedding is not one event, and each of its days has its own rules. This is the shorthand, roughly in the order the days fall.

Haldi: The turmeric morning. Yellow, marigold and raw shades in cotton, organza or light georgette — turmeric stains permanently, so nothing worn here should be a piece anyone intends to keep.
Mehendi: Henna day, and usually held outdoors in daylight. Green, orange and pink; gota patti and mirror work; and sleeves that stop above the elbow so the henna is never touched.
Sangeet: The music-and-dance evening. This is the one outfit that has to move — lighter lehengas, sequins rather than heavy zari, and a hem nobody will stand on.
Engagement: Photographed at close range more than any other function, which favours finer surface work over sheer weight: pastels, tissue, a well-cut gown or a lighter lehenga.
Wedding day: The heaviest piece in the wardrobe — a Kanchipuram, a Banarasi, or a fully worked bridal lehenga. Traditionally red, and increasingly not.
Reception: Evening and formal, with more freedom than the ceremony allows. Velvet, satin and deep jewel colours, or a saree gown where a six-metre drape would be impractical.
Cocktail: The most Western of the functions. Structured gowns, indo-western cuts, metallics and darker palettes.
Bridesmaid: Coordinated rather than matched, and deliberately a step lighter than the bride's — lighter fabric, less work, and a colour drawn from the same family.
Party wear: Evening dressing with no ceremony attached. Shine, drape and surface work all matter; comfort across eight hours matters more than it does for a wedding.
Office wear: Cotton, linen, Chanderi and light crepe in restrained colours, cut to survive a full day seated. The handlooms do this better than anything synthetic.
Casual wear: Cotton and cotton-blend kurtis and light sarees, printed rather than worked, meant to be washed at home and worn again next week.
Festive dressing: Diwali, Navratri, Onam, Raksha Bandhan, Varamahalakshmi, Karwa Chauth, Ganesh Chaturthi — each with its own regional palette. Navratri assigns a colour to each of its nine nights; Onam is traditionally the cream-and-gold kasavu; Varamahalakshmi calls for silk.