History of Chanderi Saree
India has one of the richest history of hand woven textiles, with each region having its own distinctive style. One such weave is Chanderi fabric which is names after the Chanderi town of Madhya Pradesh and has more than 700 years of weaving history. The small town is famous all over the world for its intricately designed hand-woven handloom sarees. These Chanderi sarees are as famous as Benarasi from Uttar Pradesh, Kanjeevaram from Tamil Nadu, Jamdaniis and Tant sarees from Bengal, and Bandhani from Gujarat.
It is widely believed that the birth of chanderi sarees when the koshti weavers, who moved from Jhansi to Chanderi, were employed as the royal weavers. The change of royalty as well as the influence of Mughal era has played a huge part in the evolution of chanderi sarees. During the 13th century Chanderi often called as woven air was made only for royalty and aristocrats.
Chanderi saree has a unique Weaving of the Chanderi sarees is an age old tradition kept alive by weavers with traditional weaving knowledge that has been passed down for generations, keeping this dying art alive.
The saree has buttery texture, is lightweight and has intricate motifs on it. The sarees are called as “woven air” for their delicate structure and semi-transparent look. The sarees are produced on three types of fabric pure silk, Chanderi cotton and silk cotton with intricate motifs on them. Earlier the weavers used throw shuttle method of weaving, but now the weavers have started using fly shuttle pit looms which allows one craftsmen to work on one saree and increases producivity, unlike the previous one which had two weavers working on one loom.
Chanderi handloom has always been associated with royalty; the sheer sarees have been the saree of choice for royal houses from Baroda, Nagpur, and Indore, making the chanderi fabric more valuable. In 1910 the Chanderi sarees were patronised by the Scindia family, who set up training centres to promote and preserve the art of Chanderi weaving.
Over the past 14 years, Scindia has systematically made efforts to revive the built and living heritage of this 30,000-strong town, of which 12,000 are weavers. Having restored the Raja Rani Mahal with help from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), he has moved some Chanderi weavers to it, in a collective, to ensure they get a fair price by eliminating middlemen, and providing them with facilities to sell directly to consumers. The project is called Chanderiyaan.
At Spunwoven, we work with the bunkar community from Chanderi to source and create handpicked Chanderi sarees, suits and fabrics that helps keep this heritage art alive and also provides for a sustainable livelihood to local artisans. Once we finalise a color theme, motifs, zari work, inspired by nature, festivals, our surroundings, the design goes to our weavers who then weave magic into these threads and bring to life the famous “Chanderi”. Each saree takes a minimum of two weeks to be weaved depending on the intricacies of the design. The manual hours and effort that goes into weaving a handloom product makes it much more pricier than a product created by a machine, but the handloom piece is unique, handmade, higher quality than the machine product, and an heirloom saree or suit that will stay in your family for generations.
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