Kashmir Lives Within
A Place. A People. A Tradition.
The craft exists because of the landscape, seasons and human imagination of the valley.
Land
A Valley of Light and Shadow.
Encircled by mountains, Kashmir holds its own measure of distance and intimacy. Water mirrors sky; winter pares the world back; spring returns it in blossom. The valley teaches patience through season.
Culture
The Garden as an Idea.
Water, geometry, flower and shade form an ordered paradise. This same imagination appears in carved wood, poetry, architecture — and in the flowers and vines of Kani and Sozni shawls.
People & Craft
Many Hands in Every Shawl.
A single Pashmina shawl can pass through the hands of a spinner, a dyer, a designer, a talim writer, a weaver, an embroiderer and a finisher. Most learned their skill within their own families.
Material
From Ladakh to the Valley.
The fibre comes from the Changthangi goats of Ladakh’s high plateau. It is in Kashmir that it is spun, woven and embroidered into cloth.
The landscape is not pictured upon the shawl. It lives within its rhythm.