Ilkal sarees ~ Pride of Karnataka


While starting to write, a thousand topics come to my mind. What I try to do is note down as many as possible so that I can get to write about them later. Being a die-hard handloom sari lover, I always want to write about the saris that are very close to my heart - jamdaani, bomkai, ikkat, iikal, maheshwari,bandni and many more. So for the next few blogs I will be writing a bit about these.

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This blog is on Ikkal saree. Three years back that is in the summer of 2017, I had a conference to attend on travel and blogging. The conference was in Mumbai and I remember I had decided to wear Indian on the first day and Western on the 2nd day of the two day conference. The western dress was easy to choose, I took a trouser from Allen Solly and a white shirt from HM.

For the Indian attire, I decided on a saree. Now I wanted a saree that will be of cotton, have to be light and must be very sober and elegant, yet should make me look stylist. So I went to a shop in Chickpet and on letting the shopowner know about my requirements, he suggested me a iikal. Now that was the story of how I got introduced to this wonderful iikal.

IIkal sarees gets its name from a small town in the Bagalkot district of North Karnataka where it first started in the 8th century.  The distinctive feature of Ilkal saris is the use of a form of embroidery called kasuti. Kasuti work which is very intricate sometimes involves putting up to 5,000 stitches by hand. The history of Kasuti dates back to the Chalukya period.The name Kasuti is derived from the words Kai (meaning hand) and Suti (meaning cotton), indicating an activity that is done using cotton and hands.

Making of one Ikkal saree, takes 7 to 10 days on a average. However nowadays there are power looms that reduces the labour drastically. Here are some pictures of a few sarees I took from the internet.



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