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There’s a rhythm to real embroidery. If you’ve ever sat near someone doing chikankari, you know it. That barely audible tup-tup of the needle, the way they anchor the fabric against their knees, the little knots of concentration they tie into the air. It’s not fast. It’s definitely not glamorous. It’s work that doesn’t ask for attention, but still, somehow, you feel it.
Now compare that to the chikankari kurti you bought online last week. ₹899, free shipping, “hand embroidered,” delivered in two days. Cute? Sure. But nothing about it feels alive. The stitches don’t vary. There’s no tension in the thread. Just a kind of eerie perfection—like it’s trying to imitate human hands, but the soul got left out.
This is the thing that’s been gnawing at me for a while: when did craft become aesthetic? Not in the art sense but in the Instagram-filter, “I want that look” kind of way. Somewhere along the line, chikankari, like so many other crafts, stopped being labor and became a vibe.
We love a good artisan narrative when it fits our feed. We say “handcrafted,” “sourced locally,” and “reviving traditions,” but most of the time, we’re not buying tradition. We’re buying an illusion of it.
Chikankari used to be a whispered kind of art. Quietly detailed. Imperfect in the best way. It took time, and it looked like it. Each piece was different. It meant something—because the person making it had probably learned it from their mother or grandmother. Because it wasn’t a job; it was a life.
Who’s Left Behind? Most people I know have no idea how real chikankari is done. They’ve never seen the fingers of a karigar, how dry they get, how practiced the calluses are. That knowledge, that labor, it’s invisible. And that’s not an accident. Because the second you see the woman who embroidered your dupatta, it stops being romantic. It stops being a soft, “traditional” aesthetic. It becomes work. And no one wants to think about work when they’re dressing up.
So the system does what it always does: erases the labor, polishes the product, and sells you the dream. And the karigar? She’s left fighting for space in a market that now wants her art but faster, cheaper, and cleaner. Here’s where lust comes in. People don’t want chikankari anymore; they want the look of it. They want the texture, the delicacy, the suggestion of heritage—but not the price tag, not the politics, not the waiting.
They want culture without context. Embroidery without effort. Handmade without the hands.
Why Does This Hurt More Than Fast Fashion? Fast fashion is easy to hate. Shein hauls. Plastic fabric. Toxic waste. We get it. But this—this false craft, this bastardized embroidery—it hurts in a different way.
It’s disguised as respect. It wears the skin of tradition. It claims to celebrate artisans while cutting them out of the supply chain. It uses their own aesthetic against them. And honestly, it’s smart. Evil-smart. Because most buyers will never know the difference. They’ll post their “hand-embroidered” blouse, tag a few hashtags, and move on. Meanwhile, the actual karigar sits with unsold pieces because the real thing costs more, takes longer, and doesn’t ship in 24 hours.
So What Do We Do? I'm not here to preach sustainability. I'm not even saying never buy machine chikankari. We live in a world where affordability matters, where slow isn't always possible. But what we can do is stop lying to ourselves. Let’s admit that we’re seduced by the image, even if it’s empty. Let’s admit that we’re part of the problem when we praise “craft” but refuse to pay for it. Let’s admit that lust, when unchecked, becomes erasure. Because if we keep letting machines do the talking, we’re going to forget what real embroidery even felt like. And honestly, that would be the biggest loss of all.
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