The Art of Kantha
নকশি কাঁথা — Nakshi Kantha — is a quilting technique of embroidery that hails from the histories of old Bengal, an artistic tradition that is even today regularly undertaken in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, and Bangladesh. Using simple elements such as thread and (traditionally old) fabric, Nakshi kantha creates tapestries and mesmerising designs that highlight the ways of life in rural Bengal. "Nakshi", meaning artistry and patterns, utilises the running stitch, now known as the "kantha stitch" in colloquial terms, to create artful motifs and embroidered narrative — sometimes telling an entire story through the embroidery on a piece of fabric.
Historically, akin to any folk art, kantha was made as a form of sustainability and cost-efficient preservation of available materials. Old quilts, garments, rags, and scrap fabric would be used to sew together patchwork quilts which would then be embroidered intricately from end to end, leaving hardly any negative space upon the final object. Today, nakshi kantha is highly valued as a form of art that places a great emphasis on self-expression through applique embroidery — telling stories of geography, mythology, ecology, agriculture, and domestic life from the perspective of the artisan.
Our kantha sarees, each and every one, are sewn by women, who would typically be the ones in the household to practice this tradition of embroidery and would be masters at the craft. For women in rural communities, particularly, kantha stitching remains a form of leisure that blends their personal life with intimate, friendly conversation and the opportunity to express themselves through embroidered art. As such, kantha stands out in our own memories as a seemingly endless process — our grandmothers and mothers seemed to forever be sewing the same quilt, sometimes taking months and years to turn old sarees and fabric into exquisite and incredibly vibrant quilted art.
Kantha stitches today vary from the running stitch to the lik/anarasi, the lohori, the cross-stitch, and the sujni, among others. Upwards of the 19th century, we see historical evidence of women using the kantha as a mode of narrative art, telling stories of gods, goddesses, animals, and nature, using their indigenous environment as inspiration for a contemporanised form of self-expression. The poet Rabindranath Tagore and his daughter in law, Pratima Devi, are especially renowned for training women from Birbhum in the art of narrative Kantha alongside Kalabhaban Artists.
Given its rural roots, Kantha motifs reflect some of the most unique objects and entities that are attributed to life in Bengal — the solar lotus putki, the wheel, the haat-pakha, stars, calligraphy, the peepal tree, kalka, fish, ferns, & flowers from the imagination of an undivided Bengal spring forth in this art form that unites a community separated by arbitrary borders in the modern moment.
Kantha is, above all else, a celebration of resilience and storytelling through needlework. Mrinmayee, meaning the eye of the deer, a common and sylvan name from mythology, honours this dedication to narrative art. Each of our Kantha sarees is a complete piece of handmade art whose complexity and beauty is balanced by its vibrant narrative and folkloristic charm.