GOTA WORK – GRACEFUL RAJASTHANI (INDIA) GOLDEN BAND

by Sanskriti India March 14, 2019

Meaning:

‘Gota work’ is an alluring Indian embroidery craft and is basically done in the Indian State of Rajasthan; for this special embroidery, golden zari ribbon is used.

History:

The Mughal era was the initiation period of ‘Gota work’, and at that time almost all varieties of dress materials were decorated by using this attractive art. The Rajput and Mughal royalty had the predilection for dressing in satin and silk attires, and these cloths were embellished using ‘Gota work’. In such cases, actual silver and gold threads were made use of for creating captivating motifs. Another significant matter to note here is that, customarily, natural looking images like ‘human beings’, ‘birds’, ‘flowers’, etc were used to form the designs for this embroidery work. These were stitched to the base attire by using silver or gold cords. Many places in Rajasthan, for example ‘Jaipur’, ‘Bikaner’, ‘Udaipur’, and ‘Ajmer’ were particularly famed for artisans who were skilled in ‘Gota work’.

Gota Work Technique:

‘Gota’ creation is a long-drawn-out process and requires a good amount of time. Initially the weaving process is done using looms; here, weft contains the metallic cord and cotton will be in the warp. As far as the embroidery work is concerned, the initial task is to tie the preferred cloth (in a stretched mode) to the ‘Khaat’, which is a special framework of wood. Then the desired design is drawn on this stretched base cloth by using outlining paper (tracing paper) and a specially prepared chalk paste. Depending on the nature of the motifs that have to be created, different folds of diverse forms are made, after cutting the ‘Gota’ cloth accordingly. These are then joined on the material by employing back-stitching or hemming methods. A few of the well accepted ‘Gota’ designs include images of living creatures like ‘animals’ and ‘birds’, and also attractive ‘leaves’ and ‘flowers’.

‘Gota work’ is mainly done on weightless base cloths, for instance ‘georgette’, ‘chiffon’, and ‘satin’; base material can be either the heavily dyed ones or printed materials. The work entails joining the ‘Gota’ band on the base cloth using ‘zari’, the metallic cord.

Recognizing Gota work:

The ‘ribbon work (band - created using gold or silver threads)’ that is used for forming the various patterns and figures prior to the attachment on the base cloth is a distinguishing factor of ‘Gota work’. The thickness of this band may differ in accordance with the requirement. In some cases, tiny parts of zari band are attached to the cloth with the ends stitched downwards, so as to form detailed designs.

Visit Sanskriti website; you can very clearly see the close range images of ‘Gota

work’.