The Pashmina Story by Arunanjan Saha

luxury and intricacy

The Kashmiri Pashmina Shawl - no other textile item, handcrafted has ever been historically at the centre of commerce and such conflicts. Its reference are there from the silk-route trade ages.

Pashmina store in Leh, Ladakh

Even now ‘Cashmere’ is something which defines luxury and intricacy. 'Pashm' for Pashmina comes from Changthangi goats herded by Changpas, high altitude pastoralists, in India who can be found mostly in Changthang region of Ladakh but not limited to the region.

YARN MAKING

There is Gender Divide

A large portion of collected Pashm from the Changpas comes to Srinagar. Those Pashms go to the old city households as the female members of family are one responsible for combing and spinning those to yarns. These households have hand-operated charkas for this process. Once the yarn making is done by the women, they sell them to the weavers. Only a small amount of Pashm, that too blended with silk go to the mechanical production system.

Though fully dependant on manual labour, these women get paid cents for dollars in Pashmina Making.

Dyeing

Most of the Pashmina yarns again go to the Kashmiri households where they have set up handlooms.

These people first take the yarns to the dyers

WEAVING

A part of the yarns go to handlooms where weavers make design templates and then start working on them.

A hand-weaved pashmina with intricate craftsmanship takes around 6 months to complete.

Embroidery

WORKING THE M A G I C

A portion ofdyed pashmina go for the hand embroidery. Where the outline of motifs are printed with blocks on the Pashmina shawl and the color of yarns according to the design gets finalised. It is only then the needle work starts.

intricacy

One hand-embroidered Pashmina, depending upon the intricacy of design, might take 9 months to 3 years to complete.

needle work

As opposed to competing with machine-made textiles

Pashmina stand to be an example of truly sustainable, labour and wildlife- friendly product.

The Pashmina Story is my ongoing project. For last Three years I’m working on it and have been a regular visitor in the Changthang and other areas of Ladakh. All these images shared here were made on the first set of visits. I’m working steadily on this and hope this gets the appreciation it deserve.

by Arunanjan Saha

CREATED BY
Arunanjan Saha