India, Sufiyan Ismail Khatri, Lac Dyed Indigo Wool & Silk Scarf

Two sided Ajrakh scarf - lac dyed wool scarf layered with indigo dyed silk scarf. 

In the past, before 1950’s, the local Rabari women (pastoral community) wore coarse hand-woven ‘desi’ wool fabrics dyed in color combination of ‘Lac’ and fermented iron. 

I wanted to reect the style of that period. This was in 2010 when I started work with lac dyes for the rst time. But desi wool has a coarse hand-feel. “It is scratchy on the skin”, is the feedback I get often. 

“Why not create a silk foundation to the desi-wool shawl? The silk’s smooth lustre adds a material contrast to the coarse hand-feel of desi-wool.“ 

That’s how I began to make double-sided scarves. When looking for a way to communicate the tradition of lac in modern times. 

Later I started using lac with hand-woven merino wool shawls too, like in the design shown here. The wool side is printed with fermented iron to get the blacks, and dyed in lac for the red tone. While the silk side was dyed in Indigo, printed with iron paste for black; and later boiled in henna to get the mild greens and create a balance in the overall color composition. 

This idea also gave me new ways to combine patterns - like the intricate vegetal motifs in the body on silk side with the scattered dot pattern on the wool side. And the hand-stitch kantha work to join these two fabrics added another element to the design. 

The product is made in Kachchh, India in my Ajrakh workshop using traditional Ajrakh techniques of resist-printing and natural dyeing. 

Time taken to make: 24 days 

Fabric: Handwoven wool on one side and silk on the other side 

Size: 90 cm by 250 cm