I is for... Incredible ... n ... Iconic

 

All this month I am writing about the iconic Indian handlooms, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the elegant, complex and utterly fascinating world of fibre and yarn, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural heritage and political identity.

I is for Ikat 

Now what can I say about Ikat? It is one of my absolute favourites among Indian handloom styles. Offhand, I'd say more than 20% of my wardrobe is made up of Ikat. When you consider that India has an incredibly diverse range of handloom sarees (The Handloom Development Commissioner lists  more than 100 types), having a fifth dedicated to just one style shows some positive bias, right?

What is Ikat exactly? Put simply, it is a resist dyeing technique. In which the yarn is arranged on a frame, progressively tied and dyed in multiple colours of the final pattern before weaving. As the yarn is then woven and the threads lined up, the pattern takes shape on the loom. Much easier said than done, as you can imagine, especially when there are multiple colours and complicated patterns involved. Note that an ikat patterned saree has no right or wrong side, since it is the yarn that is dyed the pattern comes out uniform on both sides of the fabric. 

As a kid in Delhi, I had visited a trade fair where master weavers had showcased all the steps of this complex, lengthy, super labour intensive and utterly spellbinding process. One of the artisans there had explained how an Ikat saree might take a full six months from design to finished off the loom. I fell irrevocably in love with this incredible textile and have never recovered. I wore my first Ikat saree as a teenager, wore an Ikat for my pre-wedding rituals and continue to wear them at dressy occasions as well as regular, not so dressy ones. In short, I can't imagine life without Ikat sarees!

Watch a video of an Ikat saree being created:

The word Ikat comes from the Malay/Indonesian phrase 'to tie.' It is one of the most ancient fabric weaving/patterning techniques, thought to date back to Neolithic times, first evolving somewhere in mainland Asia and travelling outwards as far as Madagascar and the Americas. In modern times, it is most widely used in Indonesia. Indian Ikat may have originated independently though, as the oldest evidence of Indian Ikat has been found in an Egyptian Pharoah's tomb, traced back to Odisha in the East Coast of India. 

There are two kinds of Ikat - single (tied weft or warp thread patterns) and double Ikat (both warp and weft are tied). Ikat sarees are traditionally woven in Gujarat, Telengana and Odisha in India. Both single Ikat and double Ikat sarees are woven. Single Ikats are characteristically blurry along one dimension, and little more subtle, while double Ikat patterns are blurry all round but also bolder and crisper. Apart from sarees Ikat fabrics are popular in stitched garments and home furnishings as well. Ikat is now seen on handlooms of Bengal as weavers innovate, as designs and techniques diffuse throughout India. 

Double Ikat silk Patola saree from Gujarat. Zoom in
to see the  detail of the multi-
colour tie dye pattern.

Double Ikat cotton saree from Telengana. 

Single Ikat cotton saree from Telengana.

Double Ikat Sambalpuri silk saree from Odisha. Note the
intricacy of the design on the body and the animal
 motifs on the aanchal - the deer, lion, and fish. 

Would it not be an inconsolable tragedy if these masterpieces died out?

I is also for Ichchhapuron, (lit wish fulfilment) a boutique in my home town Kolkata, created and run by Srilata Sen, a fashion designer with inputs from her young daughter Shubhroja Sen. They have curated an utterly scrumptious range of handlooms, hand-embroidered and hand-painted sarees from all over India. There's also a line of Indo-Westerns which Shubhroja is mostly involved in. They operate in USA as well through a tie-up based out of NJ and are licensed exporters shipping globally. Connect with them on FB, Insta and YT, and WhatsApp them at +91 99031 07213. 

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Did you know that Indigo, an ancient dye obtained from the leaves of the Indigofera plant, is not itself blue? When the leaves and crushed and fermented, the brew is green and turns blue only upon oxidation. Indigo was so inextricably associated with India that the Ancient Greeks named the dye/plant/colour after the country, they called it 'Indikon' or the 'blue dye from India' from which the word Indigo is derived.

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025