Artisan efforts

It takes a lot of effort and hard work to get a genuine Kashmiri pashmina made so that you can adorn yourself with the worlds most royal and luxurious fabric adding elite to your class.

Let us take you on tour of artisans who make the shawl for you..

1.       Pashmina Wool

Pashmina goats, Ladakh.

The Changthangi ,”‘Changra”‘ goats found in  Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, India grows a thick, warm undercoat which is the source of Kashmir Pashmina wool – the world’s finest Cashmere measuring between 12-15 microns in fiber thickness.

These goats survive on grass in Ladakh, a region where temperatures go as low as −20 °C. The thick warm wool on these goats is a reason for them to survive such low temperatures and the same wool keeps you warm when woven into a shawl.

 

2.    Spining

The raw pashmina wool brought from ladakh is spun into fine threads and knots by skilled kashmiri women who spin it on traditional Charkhas at homes. On an average a single spinner women is able to spin just 3 gms of pashmina wool after working for a whole day. A single pashmina shawl is made from aprox 250 gms of this spun wool. Which means that a spinner women works for 83 odd days to spin the wool for making a single shawl.

3.    Weaving

Pashmina wool spun by spinners is then woven by skilled weavers who are specialists in weaving pashmina threads into the cloth. This is done mandatorily on handlooms as the original and genuine pashmina threads will not stand the weave of machine loom. To weave on machine loom, acrylic threads resembling pashmina has to be added to pure pashmina wool so that it stand the machine thrust. A pure and genuine pashmina can only and only be woven on a handloom by soft skilled hands. It take one week for the weaver to weave a single pashmina shawl which comes to aprox 42 hours of hard and meticulous work on the loom.

4.    Finishing

Any shawl that is woven on the handloom looks raw, showing signs of loom weave on it which are to be taken off. Hence the shawl has to undergo the final finishing process that given it glow and pleasant look to suit your persona. It take some 2 hours for the person on job to complete the finishing of a single shawl.

 

5.    Embroidery

Some shawls are embroidered while as some are left plain without it. It depends on the taste and liking of person wearing the shawl to have embroidered or a plain one. Embroidery on shawls can be light moderate or heavy. Embroidery work is done by specially skilled artisans who have golden hands that can pin the delicate pashmina shawl to get embroidery on it. On a single shawl light embroidery takes 1 month, medium one takes 3 – 6 months and the heavy embroidery takes about a year to complete the work.

 

HOURS INVESTED:

Oh God..!! it takes just some 90 odd days to get a plain pashmina shawl made to suit your elegance and class… you surely deserve to own one…