The ethereal look and
gossamer touch, the micro-mini woven ‘khat’ jaali squares that let the breeze
in, the occasional glint of silver as in a star spangled summer sky… all these
make the light weight Kota sari a perfect complement to summer wardrobes. One
can’t vouch for whether the Kota is indeed the ‘vetri venti’ or ‘woven out of
the breeze’ fabric as mentioned in Roman records, but history does tell us that
Kota
weavers were originally from Mysore, from where they were brought to Kota
by Maharaja Bhim Singh in early 18th century. They continued to create their
weaving tradition there.
Delicate
patterns
Ever since, the fabric has
clothed Rajasthan’s royalty and aristocracy. Today, the Kota sari which was
originally woven in finest handspun cotton yarn, is mostly woven in silk-cotton
yarn combinations or in pure silk. It is also value added with hand block
prints, paintings, natural dyes in shaded colours, designer borders and pallus,
embroidery and so on. Only the delicately cross pattern and checked weave of
the khat remains unchanged.
“The
checks are the result of sufficient spacing between super fine warp and weft
threads say,” say Noor Mohammed and Zakir Hussain, whose ancestors settled in
Kota centuries ago. “Every thing is done in the age old way, from setting
patterns to making the graphs, dyeing the yarn and setting the loom. We buy
zari from Surat and yarn from Bangalore and Coimbatore. Local carpenters make
the simple pit looms. The yarn is dyed by specialists in our village and spread
out to dry all over the village common area. We draw the designs mostly based
on traditional motifs of flower, leaf, etc. with some innovative ideas thrown
in. There are 15,000 artisans and weavers in our village. For weaving, we use
the throw-shuttle technique which provides the weaver flexibility in design
transfer.”
The Kota
saris specially created by Khaitoon weavers for the Chennai exhibition include
pure cotton, silk cotton and silk in a wide range of designs and colours. There
are pure silks in soft summer colours such as tulip yellow, turquoise blue,
pink and mint green set off by woven silver borders. The plain silk range
include skirt border saris woven with floral leaves or amri motifs, pretty
silver or gold borders and glamorous evening saris in deep reds and blues. Pure
zari zig-zags on pallus and discharge prints on silk are other attractions.
Eye
catching cotton-by-tissue saris with motifs woven across the body and deep
coloured saris with zari borders form part of the evening wear collection.
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