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Born in the lanes of Lucknow, carried into the wardrobes of today.
Native Threads brings you Chikankari the way it was meant to be worn — hand-needled, unhurried, and made to last far beyond a season.
Chikankari is a centuries-old embroidery tradition native to Lucknow, believed to have flourished under the patronage of Mughal royalty and refined over generations by the artisans of Awadh. The word itself is thought to trace back to Persian roots, but its home has always been Lucknow — where it remains, to this day, almost entirely done by hand.
The technique involves over three dozen recognized stitches, each with its own name and character — bakhiya, phanda, jaali, murri — worked in white thread on fine, breathable fabric, traditionally to keep the wearer cool through Lucknow's summers. A single piece can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks, passing through the hands of multiple artisans before it's finished.
At Native Threads, we work directly with Kaarigars who've inherited this craft through their families, ensuring every piece you receive is authentic, hand-done, and fairly made.
In fact, Chikankari begins long before the needle ever touches fabric — with block printing, where wooden blocks stamp the outline of the design onto the cloth in washable ink, guiding the embroiderer's hand.
From there, the piece moves between artisans specializing in different stitches, each adding their layer before it's washed, starched, and finished.
The most prized pieces also feature jaali work — delicate, hand-pulled lattice patterns created by carefully parting the threads of the fabric itself, a technique so fine it's often used to judge the true skill of a Kaarigar.
It's this layered, multi-hand process — part discipline, part inherited instinct — that makes no two Chikankari pieces ever quite the same.