Words by Vaani Bhala
Field Notes from India
Ikat is everywhere today. It appears on runways, cushions, wallpapers, and printed fabrics across the world. It is often described as bold, graphic, or tribal. Rarely is it described accurately. Ikat is not a surface design. It is a method. A technically demanding process in which yarns are dyed before they are woven, with the final pattern planned long before the fabric comes into existence. The design is imagined, mapped, and committed to at the thread stage. In India, ikat has been practised for centuries across regions such as Odisha, Telangana, and Gujarat. Each tradition carries its own materials, colour systems, and visual language. To call ikat a pattern is to overlook the intelligence required to make it.
"In ikat, the design exists before the fabric does."
Ikat developed independently across different parts of the world, including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and India. In the Indian subcontinent, it evolved in response to local climate, fibre availability, and cultural use. Whether worn daily, exchanged ceremonially, or offered ritually, ikat textiles were deeply embedded in social life. The process demands foresight and restraint. Dyed sections must align precisely once the fabric is woven. A single miscalculation becomes permanent. Multiple dye baths are required, each layered carefully. This level of planning limits speed and scale, but it ensures integrity. Ikat was never meant to be fast. Its value lay in preparation, repetition, and trust in accumulated skill.
The intelligence of ikat lies upstream, long before the loom is set. The dyer must work in reverse, visualising the final textile while handling loose threads. Patterns are marked, bound, dyed, and rebound multiple times. Each step requires accuracy, but also acceptance of variation. Absolute precision is impossible, and that uncertainty is part of the craft.
In regions like Odisha, ikat traditions were closely tied to temple economies and ritual use. Motifs carried symbolic meaning and followed strict rules of placement. In Telangana, ikat developed alongside trade networks, with patterns responding to market demand while retaining technical discipline. In Gujarat, double ikat traditions demanded even greater mastery, with both warp and weft resist dyed to align perfectly on the loom.
These distinctions matter. They reflect different systems of knowledge, not interchangeable aesthetics.
As global fashion and interiors markets expanded in the twentieth century, ikat entered a new phase. Its visual language became desirable, but its process was seen as slow and impractical. Industrial printing offered an easier route. Blurred edges and jagged forms could be reproduced without resist dyeing or loom alignment.
This marked a turning point. Ikat shifted from being understood as a technique to being consumed as a look. The word remained, but the meaning changed. What had once justified time, skill, and cost was reduced to surface effect.
The consequences were not only cultural, but economic. When process disappears from view, labour loses value. Artisans competing with printed imitations could no longer command prices that reflected the complexity of their work. The market rewarded appearance, not knowledge.
Today, ikat is frequently grouped under broad labels such as global or tribal. These terms flatten difference and erase specificity. An ikat from Odisha is not interchangeable with one from Central Asia, yet they are often treated as such. This loss of distinction weakens both understanding and appreciation.
At Material Archives, we approach ikat as a way of thinking rather than a style. It teaches patience, foresight, and commitment. It accepts imperfection as evidence of process, not failure.
Recognising ikat as a process changes how we value it. It shifts attention from what is visible to what is prepared. From the finished cloth to the decisions embedded within it.
Ikat has endured not because it adapts easily to trends, but because its logic is sound. It reminds us that design begins long before the object appears, and that some forms of intelligence can only be understood by slowing down.