Baluchari Saree - A Bengal’s Gift To Women

By Author: Lakshmi
Total Articles: 284
Comment this article

Bengal’s gift, Baluchari Saree is a traditional attire, which was brilliantly adapted to the modern techniques due to enthusiastic responses from the women.

The most astounding creation of god is Women. A woman looks traditional as well as beautiful when she drapes a saree.

India is well-famed for its arts & crafts. West Bengal is popular for its fine Baluchari Sarees or Baluchar Sarees.

A five yard baluchari saree gives an alluring look to the woman who wears it. These sarees are made with silk and intricate golden works, exhibits a royal look.

Baluchari Sarees were produced from the town Baluchar which is located in Marshidabad. Later, the artisans of Baluchari left Marshidabad and migrated to Bishnupur. Originally, Baluchari sarees are from West Bengal.

The interesting point is, these sarees are suitable for all age groups i.e., teenagers, middle-agers as well as elders. This is the real beauty behind these sarees.

Baluchari Sarees are designed with artistic designs and traditional arts on the fabrics, they mostly depict the olden days and mythological stories.

Designing ...
... a Baluchari Saree takes approximately one week and hard labour. They are pure handcrafted sarees. The appeal of these sarees lies in its colour harmony as no contrasting colours are used.

Pallu occupies a major role in designing process as these sarees are more popular with their grand Pallu work. The Malla Empire’s Terra Cotta temples are the basic designs used by the artisans for designing the Pallu.

Baluchari Sarees are silk brocaded designs possessed by silk base. To obtain a beautiful and durable fabric, the artisan first rears the silk worms and makes into cocoon. From the cocoon, he extracts the raw silk fabrics.

Artisan boils the yarn into the mixer of soda and soap solution for obtaining softness. According to the saree design, he uses acid colour in dying process. After that, he stretches the opposite directions of yarn from both sides with palm force.

Pallu designing is an intricate process, here artisan uses trace papers and punching cards. Firstly, he designs motif on trace paper and then uses punching card to punch the design onto fabric. Before punching, artisan dyes the fabric into harmony colours.

Looming process takes final step to weave the saree and it will be dried up to the mark. To produce the good quality, artisan checks the saree after every step in weaving process.

The motifs such as flowers, shrubs, animals and mostly the mythological stories like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Mughal temples etc are the major designs of these sarees. The basic colours used in these sarees are red, green, yellow, cream, blue and chocolate etc.

Now days, artisans are using different fabrics such as pure silk, pure cotton and silk cotton to weave baluchari sarees. These sarees are well suitable for weddings, festivals, grand parties and dinners. Baluchari Sarees with golden works are apt for corporate and classical wear.

Baluchari sarees were displayed in international trade fairs and won precedential award from the federal government for its weaving style.