Zardozi

Zardozi: metal on cloth

Zardozi is the Persian word for gold work, and that is still what it is. The materials are metal: dabka (a tightly coiled wire, like a very fine spring), naksh (a twisted version of the same), tikki and sitara (sequins), kasab (flat gold thread), and sometimes seed beads or kundan stones.

None of it goes through the fabric. The karigar lays the wire on the surface and tacks it down with fine cotton or silk thread — a technique called couching — so the design sits raised on top of the cloth, catching light from every angle.

How it's worked

The fabric is stretched drum-tight across an adda, a wooden frame about a metre and a half long, and the karigar sits on the floor on one side with a hooked needle. Because the material is metal, zardozi is heavy and slow: a yoke of the size on our deep-red anarkali is a full day or more of one person's work. That is why real zardozi lives on a few places on a garment — the yoke, the cuffs, the hem border, the dupatta edge — and never all over.

How to recognise it

• Run your thumb across it. Zardozi has relief; you can feel the coils.
• Turn it inside out. You see only small, regular tacking stitches, never the design itself.
• Look at the flowers. Hand-couched wire varies slightly from motif to motif. If every flower is identical and the back is stiff, it is machine work in metallic thread, not zardozi.

Caring for zardozi

• Dry-clean only; never wash metal work at home — the wire oxidises and the coils flatten.
• Store flat or rolled in muslin. Don't hang by the shoulders: the weight of the yoke pulls the fabric out of shape within a season.
• Keep perfume off the embroidery.

Zardozi at Sangeet

We use zardozi where it will be seen from across the room — anarkali yokes, sharara kurti fronts, dupatta borders — and pair it with aari across the body so the piece stays wearable for a whole evening.

Shop zardozi pieces → · Zardozi vs aari: how to tell them apart → · All techniques →