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Embroidered
Shawls & Stoles, worn by Indians for ages, the
Indian shawls are warmly welcomed in the world
market today. Famous for it woven and embroidered
designs, the Indian shawls produced mainly by
Kashmiri craftsmen. Shawl is also woven in Assam,
Gujarat and Rajasthan. But those woven in Kashmir
are most widely worn. The warmth of the Pashmina
wool shawl from Kashmir are unparalleled. The
warmth and pastel shades of these shawls Jamawar,
Pashmina and Embroidery are admired through the
world.
History:
Also spelled Cashmere, type of woolen shawl woven
in Kashmir. It is said that the shawl were famous
from Kashmir even in the times of emperor Ashok
(3rd C BC) but many writers credited Sultan
Zain-Ul-Abidin A.D) as the initiator of
Shawl industry in Kashmir. It may be the Sultan
whose enlightened rule encouraged promotion of arts
as an organized trade and the Pashmina or in
Persian called "Pashm" that we know today is a
legacy of that period.
Shawl has been worn and used as a warm
protective garment by kings and queens since
ancient times. However, the Mughal emperor Akbar
experimented with various styles and encouraged
weavers to try new motifs, which helped establish a
successful shawl industry.
Though the history of shawl weaving, with which the
history of woolen textiles is closely associated,
is rather obscure, references to shawls are first
found in the Ramayana and Mahabharata and the
Atharvaveda. Derived from the Persian shal, which
was the name for a whole range of fine woolen
garments, the shawl in India was worn folded across
the shoulder, and not as a girdle, as the Persians
did. Even today, we sometimes see old Parsis with a
shawl tied around their waist during their
religious ceremonies.
Though shawl is worn and used as a warm
protective garment all over the northern states
today, Kashmir has become synonymous with shawls
all over the world. There are no earlier
indications but around the Mughal rule in India,
Kashmir soon overtook the northwest frontier and
Punjab, as the center of shawl- making. Akbar was
greatly enamored by the Kashmir shaw land the way
it was worn, folded in four, captured his
imagination. He experimented with various ways of
wearing it, and found that it looked good worn
without folds, just thrown over the shoulder.
Read
more about Indian
Apparel....
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