Kota Doria Dress Material Rust Red Floral Jaal

This two piece unstitched dress material kurta top and dupatta the sheer graph check cotton from Kaithoon near Kota in Rajasthan The ivory ground is covered in an allover rust red and terracotta floral jaal of linked blossoms and fine trailing vines across the top while the sheer matching dupatta carries scattered floral buti bold corner bouquets and a block printed floral border at each end The proof of a genuine Kota Doria is its khat the fine net of tiny squares made by alternating finer and coarser cotton yarns across the loom Handwoven the squares are never machine perfect they swell and shrink by a fraction across the width because each is beaten in by hand The floral pattern is hand block printed not screen printed look for the soft registration shifts where one stamp meets the next the small overlaps at the repeats and colour that has soaked into the fibre so the motif reads from the reverse a screen print sits as flat dots on the surface and lines up with mechanical precision Held to the light the weave is open and luminous crisp from a traditional starch finish rather than a synthetic stiffener and strikingly light in the hand A GI protected craft Kota Doria is woven by the weaver families of Kaithoon on pit looms as it has been for generations and the floral is stamped by hand one wooden block at a time in the Rajasthani printing tradition The cloth is prized for a rare pairing of qualities sheer and cool enough for the fiercest heat yet firm enough to hold fine print and drape with a clean crisp fall Made up as a straight kurta the warm rust red floral against the ivory ground gives an easy festive leaning look that pairs handsomely with oxidised silver or gold the sheer dupatta lifts the set for daytime functions and pujas The breathable cotton stays cool through summer and the rust on ivory palette works with gold cream or deep red accessories