Intricate Features of Pashmina Kani Shawl – Overview

Abstract

The present article focuses on the detailed investigation of the traditional pashmina Kani shawls woven in Kashmir. The finest natural fiber Pashmina is used for making widely popular Pashmina Kani shawls by handicraft personals. The study encompasses the raw materials used in making it, the type of handloom, the kani sticks, spinning charkha, along with different spinning attributes associated like doubling, drafting, warping, denting, design, kilpering, and so on. The study also covers minute details about the specialty coded language Talim being used by local craft persons. Different types of dyes both natural and synthetic have been covered. Pashmina shawls manufactured using power looms giving stiff competition to handloom shawls, affecting livelihood of artisans and workers. Moreover purity of the power loom based shawls also lacks purity since instead of using pure wool fiber, wool blended with nylons being used. Looking to that different initiations suggested by central and state government for uplifting the fading artistic decorum have also been incorporated like United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Trade Organization (WTO), and Geographical Indications (GI). Suggestions have been also incorporated for the modernization of the loom set up and government steps undertaken for development of the Kani shawls.

Keywords

• pashmina
• kani
• talim
• loom
• spinning
• charkha