This post moves away from the peaceful, rural villages of previous craft profiles, onto the bustling, polluted and noisy city of Ahmedabad. This city has been named the ‘Manchester of the East’ because of its rich and ancient history of textile production. The city is well-known for its block printing, and was the home of the trade of saudigiri printed textiles for the Thai market which began about two hundred years ago, reached its peak at the turn of the century, but declined during the Second World War. The saudigiri motifs share more similarities to those of the malir, jimhardi and haidharo block prints for the skirts of women in…
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Book Review: Indian Embroideries II
Indian Embroideries 2 is the new Calico Museum publication by Anne Morrell. Gira Sarabhai tells us that at the start that the book is to be seen as a supplement to the book of the same name, part 1, published in 1973, and written by John Irwin and Margaret Hall. Having contributed some images for the book, I was sent a complimentary copy a few weeks ago. I was delighted to receive the familiar Indian stitched calico package, and the book inside was definitely worth the wait. The book cover closely resembles the original, using a similar font for the title, a black background and an image of an appliqued pictorial…
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Images of Ahmedabad
