Pair of handmade Ikat pillows, Uzbekistan

Archived

Buyer protection

SILVER Seller in Prato, Italy

Follow this seller

Explore Seller's Store

100 % Positive feedback

Item description

Pair of handmade pillows in Ikat fabric; the top side is silk velvet with vibrant colors and geometric decorations, the back is blue silk with white patterns. The two pillows are unique and unrepeatable pieces, were made between 2005 and 2009 in small workshops in southern Uzbekistan with the "baghmal" ikat silk velvet thick and soft. Ikat (the meaning of the term in Uzbek is "cloud"), is a technique of dyeing yarns, which allows obtaining beautiful designs with blurred contours; originally born in Malaysia and Indonesia, it has then developed independently in many different cultures and continents, such as Peru and Guatemala, Japan, Yemen, India, and Uzbekistan. The term "ikat" is Indonesian ("mengikat") and means to knot, to tie, because some parts of the yarns are protected by a tight binding in order not to be dyed, while the untied parts are colored. The result is a yarn that is only partially colored, which once woven reveals an animated decorative pattern. The procedure is very time-consuming, as well as very complex, so much so that it requires considerable skill, which is precisely why within the cultures that produced them, "ikats" were typically status symbols. India and Indonesia have their own ancient traditions of ikat fabric making, however, it is the ikat fabrics of Uzbekistan that have become a recent hit in the fashion and interior design industries for their big, bold designs and for mixing unimaginable ikat colors. Today ikat is the national textile of Uzbekistan, where it is produced mainly in the southern region, in the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, Khiva, and the city of Kokand in the Ferghana valley; from 1960 to 1990 until today many traditional textile skills and techniques that had been neglected for years have been revived, also thanks to the state incentive of not charging taxes to artisans who produce manually. In Uzbekistan, fabrics were already produced before the conquest of the country by Charlemagne in 329 BC and the commercial economy of the country has always been prosperous thanks to the rich trade that involved it: Uzbekistan passed the fascinating, mysterious and legendary "Silk Road"!

ID: 4672-1646561350-34399