Kalamkari And Ikat! What The Past Has Given The World

By Author: Merasal
Total Articles: 3
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The art of design was inducted into this world when creativity started questioning man's executory skills. People started linking nature and her beauty to their everyday life and culture. The lust for perfection and uniqueness is what fed the Renaissance, the embarkment of surreal arts and designs.

Art, design and creativity were definitely not exclusive to the Western Class but rather out shadowed by the finesse and plush produced from the Eastern side of the world. Especially the middle east was the leading pioneers in technicality and sophistication in incorporating designs and textures. The speciality about these was that almost every other design is drawn from their immediate surroundings or collecting from the visions they had about life around them.

Kalamkari is one of the oldest known such technique where the artist uses block or hand printing to enhance the chic of the textiles. Roots of this technique fall in Iran (Persia back in the medieval times) and found its way into the Indian civilisation with the invasion of the Mughals and Sultanate of Delhi. Kalamkari in Persian literally defines to Kalam ...
... (pen) and Kari (craftmanship). As it defines itself the art is filled with intricate patterns and prints painfully laid by hand on each individual dress. No two dress will or shall have the same type of design.

Another form of design that has successfully lived through time is Ikat. The history of its origin is vague but they seem to rise into popularity within Maritime Southeast Asia, Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. An ingenious dyeing technique where the yarn is individually dyed before weaving out the cloth. As the yarns are later weaved any changes would create newer never seen before patterns. Used to bring out authentic and solitary themes, the characteristic of Ikat is an apparent "blurriness" to the design as a result of the extreme difficulty the Weaver has lining up the dyed yarns.

These traditional systems are even used nowadays but rather without the vigour they used to have back in the day. Designers and artists use the core of these techniques but have updated their tools of the trade. Fashion always learns to adapt and update with changing times but, tradition and culture are two key assets which if lost is equivalent to losing fashion per se. That's the essence and importance heritage has on the present and future.