The Jamdani

Jamdani is a Persian word that indicates a type of very fine grain fabric decorated with floral motifs. In Bangladesh Jamdani is synonymous with sari, but not with any sari. Jamdani is the pride of the millennial mastery and wisdom of Bengali artisans, a type of fabric that experienced its greatest splendour during the Mughal period and unfortunately risked disappearing almost entirely with the advent of the English colonizers and the interests of the East India Company.

The Jamdani is made of a particular fabric called muslin, the finer and more expensive the sari will be. It is said that a muslin sari is so thin that it can be passed through a ring.

During processing, the typical designs are usually inserted with trimmings, usually flowers or stylized plants, in relief which are its unmistakable characteristic, woven with coarser cotton threads giving the impression that they are almost floating on a fabric surface fine. It is an ideal fabric during the summer months, very light, very elegant and refined but above all it represents the quintessence of the beauty of the textile tradition of Bangladesh and officially recognized with the certification of geographical origin in 2016 (after a long legal battle with India) and in 2013 as a cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO.

The Mughal governors decreed its success at the turn of the 1550s and 1650s, the only families actually able to afford them. Famous for their refined taste, lovers of art and good food, the Mughals have left much more to behold: the most beautiful buildings in Dhaka and its surroundings date back to this period and the typical dishes of the Mughals are still today among the most succulent of all Bengali cuisine. It was they who brought the first Persian artisans to work in Bangladesh to make Bengali muslin, bringing together Persian ideas and experience with Bengali culture.

With the advent of English colonizers many things unfortunately changed. The muslin was replaced by much cheaper English cotton and the weavers were moved to work on automatic looms to cope with a growing demand for fabric. The local weaving done on wooden frames by hand lost competitiveness and thus the muslin and the creations in this fabric almost disappeared. A little more than a century after its appearance, the skill, experience and creativity of these artisans were almost lost because they were no longer competitive.

Today, Jamdani is on the market, produced with motorized frames, but they are only a very distant and above all cheaper version of the original ones in muslin. A sari like the one in the photos can cost from 1000 to 1500 Euros depending on the complexity of the motifs and requires no less than six months of work with two weavers crouched side by side on a single frame like those shown in the video.

In the past it was only men who were the protagonists of the working of these wonderful saris; the women devoted themselves above all to the phase, also this very long, of preparation of the yarn.

In recent years we are witnessing a revival of the creation of Jamdani, and the recognition obtained in 2016 as well as the festival that is now taking place in Dhaka are a confirmation of this. There is a willingness on the part of large local textile production companies to revive this art and bring it back to its former glory by placing the figure of the craftsman at the centre, paying it adequately so that it has the incentive to continue the tradition. It is interesting to know that the weaving techniques and the floral motifs came and are still handed down orally and by heart from the master to the apprentice that very often they were nothing but father and son.

But if you want to keep this tradition alive, pride in this type of fabric should not be confined to Bangladesh and a handful of passionate collectors. To ensure that the craftsmanship, skill and patience of these artisans remain over time it is necessary that the rest of the world also learns about it and the only way to do it is to wear them.

Jamdani is a sari that is handed down from generation to generation. The mothers pass it to their daughters and never misses in the wedding kits. A curiosity: to keep them at their best they must be rolled up on a piece of cardboard or wooden sticks and placed in a closet. If they were hung, the weight would flake the texture along the folds. I confess to having one rolled up, in the respect of tradition, in the wardrobe waiting to come back to life for a very special occasion and so maybe one day I will also teach you how to wear it.