Mubassirah Khatri: The First Woman of Ajrakh

Mubassirah Khatri is a pioneer, being the first woman in the Ajrakh craft and skilfully combining Ajrakh prints with hand-painted art to create contemporary designs within a centuries-old tradition.

“I enjoy creating surface designs that tell a story. I feel there is an instant emotional connection with a textile that has a story in its design. This is true for me as a textile artisan and for the wearer of the textile,” says Mubassirah Khatri, 25, the first Ajrakh woman artisan from Ajrakhpur, Kutch, Gujarat, India, and the founder of Elysian, a brand of artisanal Ajrakh hand-block-printed and hand-painted textiles and attire.

Mubassirah Khatri

Ajrakhpur is a craft village renowned for its centuries-old tradition of Ajrakh, a complex and time-consuming technique of resist hand-block printing with wooden blocks. Traditionally, 18–20 steps are required to create an Ajrakh textile (as the textile is printed, dyed, washed, and dried multiple times), and the process stretches across 20–22 days. Traditional Ajrakh prints use natural dyes in indigo, maroon, and black, with white (the ground colour) creating patterns and outlining motifs...

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Image Credits:

All photographs courtesy of Mubassirah Khatri / Munira Khatri / Shrishti Kumari