Amber Top with Indigo Ajrak Overlapping Panels

Handwoven amber cotton top with indigo Ajrak overlapping panels.

Material: Hand-woven Cotton with Ajrak Hand-block Panel

​Care instructions: Hand wash with mild soap, air dry in shade

Cotton is a handspun handwoven cotton fabric. Cotton is a resilient fabric that breathes easily. It is India’s signature fabric and represents the very spirit of India’s struggle for freedom. Today, Cotton has gained popularity once again and is used to create traditional as well as contemporary clothes as in the tunic featured here. 

Ajrak or Ajrakh a kind of blockprinted fabric that is Sindhi in origin. The texture of the fabric is very soft because of the rigorous method of block printing used. The famous bust of a priest-king excavated at Mohenjodaro has a shawl draped over his shoulder that resembles an Ajrak. Ajraks are made with natural dyes, both vegetable and mineral dyes. The printing is usually done on both sides by a long and laborious process known as resist printing. In this method of printing, the design is creating by pre-treating certain areas of the fabric in order that it resists penetration of the dye while the rest of the cloth picks up the dye. The resulting cloth is so soft that is it used to swaddle babies in Sindhi culture.