Old world & eco-friendly

bagru prints

Like its royal palaces, the artworks of Rajasthan are also steeped in heritage. The Pink City of Jaipur is indeed a delight for art buffs and shoppers who love traditional handmade fabrics.

And Bagru hand-block prints are the perfect combination of art and fashion. Best described as an ancient, rare and exotic craft form, Bagru hand-block prints trace their origin to a sleepy and tranquil town of Bagru, lying around 40 km from the capital city on Jaipur-Ajmer Road.

Bagru hand-block printing is a labour-intensive process that demands lots of skill, endurance, time and effort. Bagru craftsmen are not only striving to keep this three-century-old traditional artwork of the town alive, but are also popularising the art form in today’s world of modern fashion. What’s more, Bagru hand-block prints are quite eco-friendly too.

Bagru was once an estate in the district of Jaipur in the medieval era and is famed for its special variety of clay called fuller’s earth (multani mitti). It enjoys a rich history of its own: around 450 years back, the nomadic community of Chhipas migrated from Sawai Madhopur in Alwar district to Bagru and settled on the banks of Sanjaria river that has an abundance of clay.

The Chhipa community are known to be experts in the art of fabric printing. Currently, the craftsmen of Bagru reside in Chhipa Mohalla on the riverbanks and make use of the abundant clay to smear the fabric. This clay forms a significant ingredient in preparing the base colour of the Bagru print.

To begin with, the fabric is washed in cold water and smeared with fuller’s earth and kept for six months. It is then dipped in turmeric to get the beige colour and then beautiful handmade, wooden block prints in earthy colours are applied to the fabric. The printed fabric is then dried in the sun for a couple of hours. Once dried, the colour starts to shine. Traditional herbal and vegetable dyes are used here as they last long.

The three significant colours used are black, maroon and red and an array of natural colouring agents applied include alum, turmeric, indigo, dried flowers and pomegranate. It takes around three months to prepare herbal dyes and the entire dyeing process goes on for three days. So, to make one Bagru hand-block printed sari, it takes at least six-and-a-half months.

Bagru-printed works have motifs mainly inspired by nature. Thanks to some Persian influence, these fabrics also started to sport geometrical motifs. Sometimes, the motifs are quite large like the ones depicting folks playing dandiya raas.

Bagru faces a scarcity of water, which is why the dyeing process in the printing isn’t elaborate. Instead, bagru printing utilises indigo backgrounds to make the job easier.
Bagru hand-block printed works attract a legion of global buyers and saris come in cotton, chiffon and silk. While the cotton ones range between Rs 450 and Rs 10,000, the silk ones range between Rs 350 and a lakh.