The Pasha And The Story Of Ikat

The Pasha And The Story Of Ikat

We thought you might like to know more about the fabric we use in our Pasha Collection…

Our Pashas are made from genuine Ikat silk fabric using beautiful craftsmanship in the ancient tradition.

Not two ikats will ever be exactly the same as they are always hand-dyed and hand woven individually.

Real Ikat is made by an intensive process of marking, typing and dying the design into the yarn before weaving the fabric.

Our Ikat fabric is handcrafted in Uzbekistan and we only use traditional designs and colours to maintain the exquisiteness of the very special fabric.

Ikat, or ikkat, is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employs resist dyeing on the yarns prior to dyeing and weaving the fabric. In Ikat the resist is formed by binding individual yarns and bundles of yarns with a tight wrapping applied in the desired pattern. The yarns are then dyed. The bindings may then be altered to create a new pattern and the yarns dyed again with another colour. This process may be repeated multiple times to produce elaborate, multi-coloured patterns. When the dyeing is finished all the bindings are removed and the yarns are woven into cloth. In Ikat the resist is applied to the yarns before they are woven into cloth. Because the surface design is created in the yarns rather than on the finished cloth, in Ikat both fabric faces are patterned.

A characteristic of Ikat textiles is an apparent “blurriness” to the design. The blurriness is a result of the extreme difficulty the wearer has lining up the dyed yarn so that the pattern comes out perfectly in the finished cloth. The blurriness can be reduced by using finer yarns or by the skill of crafts-person. Ikat with little blurriness, multiple colours and complicated patterns are more difficult to create and therefore often more expensive. However, the blurriness that is so characteristic of Ikat is often prized by textile collectors.

A pasha is, of course a high-ranking title, originating in Turkey and appropriate to our collection; a hedonistic beautiful role.

A decadent robe, exquisite, beautiful and divine!