CRAFT INDEX ENTRY

Bandhani: The Pattern Is Tied, Not Printed

Tie-resist dyeing on mulmul cotton and gajji silk, the points tied by Khatri women across Kutch and Jamnagar in Gujarat, and in Rajasthan as bandhej. A fine piece can hold tens of thousands of knots, dyed lightest colour first and darkest last.

Region: Kutch, Gujarat

Complexity: High

Fiber: Cotton, silk

Authenticity: Jamnagari Bandhani, 2016

Stage: Thousands of hand-tied points

Duration: Days to weeks per piece

The whole design exists before a drop of dye arrives. A printer first pricks the pattern onto the cloth through a perforated sheet dusted with charcoal, laying out a grid of dots. Then the tying begins: a woman lifts a few threads of fabric on her fingernail, often grown long for exactly this, and winds thread tight around each raised point, hundreds of them across a hand's width. Those bound points are what the dye cannot reach. The cloth goes into the palest colour first, is opened and re-tied, then dipped darker, so one piece may pass through several baths and several rounds of knotting. Nothing is drawn on the finished cloth. The circles, squares and wave-grids are the white spots the thread protected, raised slightly where the fabric was pinched. The step everyone waits for is khulna, the untying, when the knots are pulled off and the pattern is seen whole for the first time.

Reading the Cloth: Real Against Copy

Two tests you can do with the piece in your hands: turn it over, and look along the repeat.

Tied, Raised, Never Identical

The cloth is slightly puckered where thousands of points were pinched and tied. Each dot is a tiny ring with a soft, uneven edge, and no two are exactly alike. The colour shows on both faces.

What to look for

A puckered, slightly three-dimensional surface
Dots with soft, uneven edges, each one different
Tiny white centres the thread kept from the dye
Colour visible on both faces
Faint tie marks where the thread was wound

Printed, Flat, Identical

A printed imitation is smooth, with no pucker to the hand. The dots are perfectly round and evenly spaced, repeating without variation. The pattern often sits on one face only.

Warning signs

A flat, smooth surface with no pucker
Perfectly round, evenly spaced dots
An exact repeat with no variation
Pattern on one face only
Colour that sits on the surface and fades

Where to Go Next

Care Lab

How to wash it, store it, wear it and mend it.

Open Care Lab

Intelligence

Real against fake, this against that, and why it costs what it costs.

Open Intelligence

Stories

The people behind the cloth, told the way they tell it.

Open Stories

Bandhani: The Pattern Is Tied, Not Printed

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Reading the Cloth: Real Against Copy

Where to Go Next

Care Lab

Intelligence

Stories