Chikankari Mul Chanderi Dress Material Off White Pink Floral

A unstitched dress material in soft off white hand embroidered in the heritage needle craft of Lucknow and worked here in rose pink with mauve shading Full pink blooms gather at the neckline yoke and the same flower is scattered as butis down the body of the kameez The sheer matching dupatta carries pink floral bootas a golden zari edge and knotted tassels at each end It comes as two unstitched pieces kameez fabric and dupatta ready to be tailored to your size The soft pink palette still shows its handwork clearly The blooms are worked in bakhiya or shadow work sewn from the back so the pink thread glows through the sheer cotton instead of sitting flat on the surface with darker mauve threads shading the petals and murri knots raising the flower centres one at a time Turn the fabric over and you will find the shadow stitch and loose thread ends a printed or machine embroidered copy is flat uniform on every flower and clean on the reverse Chikankari has been worked in Lucknow since the Mughal era and was given a Geographical Indication for the city in 2008 A set like this passes through block printer embroiderer and washer over several days so small differences between one flower and the next are a sign of the hand not a flaw Pink on off white is light and easy for daytime a lunch a haldi a summer workday Stitch it straight or A line pair the floral dupatta and keep to gold or pearl jewellery so the embroidery leads