From Bagru to Bagh: Exotic textile prints of India

India has been well known for its textiles since ancient times with the origin of the Indian textiles tracing back to the Indus Valley civilization since the 5th millennium BC. Indians were involved in the usage of homespun cotton for weaving their garments and adding colours to the fabrics, with the import and export of textiles playing an important role in the trade business of India. Today, home to some popular textiles, let’s take a look at some of them.

Bagru textiles is a block printing process that begins with preparing the cloth and continues through the indigenous methods which are used until the finished printed fabric is made. In this process, the wooden blocks are transformed into motifs with special features on a light-colored background with different prints and styles.

Indian khadi is a handspun, hand-woven natural fiber cloth that was known as Khaddar during the British era and aligns with the Swadeshi movement. It is also known as the Swadeshi fabric, where the fibers are spun into a yarn on a spinning wheel called a Charkha and is a versatile fabric with a warm end in winter and a cooling end in the summers.

Bagh print is mainly the traditional hand block print using natural colors which is practiced near the Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh. Its name is mainly derived from the village Bagh on the banks of the Bagh River with the fabric having geometric and floral motifs using a vegetable color over a white background is a popular textile printing product.

A type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, you will find two types of distinctive styles which are the Srikalahasti and the Machilipatnam style. The first one involves a pen for freehand drawing of patterns and filling in the colors which is pure hand worked. Whereas the second style involves vegetable-dyed block-painting of a fabric.

Sambalpuri is mainly a traditional handwoven material wrapped and then tie-dyed before weaving. It incorporates the traditional motifs such as shell, wheel, and flower. In this technique, the threads are initially tie-dyed and later woven into a fabric with the entire process taking weeks to complete.