What four hundred hours looks like: a bride’s guide to hand embroidery
When you pay for couture, you are paying for hours and hands. This is how to see them — and how to tell hand work from machine work in one glance.
Every bridal lehenga we make carries between two hundred and six hundred hours of hand embroidery. But most brides have never been told what the words on the price tag actually mean. So, plainly:
Zardozi
Metal thread — gold or silver — couched over padding, worked on a stretched frame. This is the embroidery of Mughal courts, and it's what gives bridal wear its weight and glow. Look at the back of real zardozi and you'll see the karigar's hand; machine versions are suspiciously perfect and flat.
Gota patti
Ribbon appliqué from Rajasthan — flat metallic ribbon folded and stitched into petals and leaves. Lighter than zardozi, brilliantly festive, and it dances in candlelight. Wonderful for sangeet and mehendi outfits.
Aari
A hooked needle worked from above the frame, producing fine chain-stitch florals at speed no ordinary needle can match. Aari gives you dense, flowing patterns without the weight of metal.
Bandhani
Not embroidery — resistance dyeing, from Kutch and Saurashtra. Thousands of tiny points are tied by hand before the cloth is dyed; untied, they leave constellations of dots. Genuine bandhani has slightly irregular dots. The irregularity is the signature of the hand — machine-printed "bandhani" repeats perfectly, and that perfection is how you catch it.
Mirror & thread
Shisha work — each mirror caught in a web of hand stitches. Count the stitches around one mirror: eight or more, and irregular, means hand work.