Harud

Nishat is the Mughal garden above the lake, planted in terraces of flowers. This shawl is that garden after dark: a black ground carrying a whole field of blossom, with an ochre paisley border holding it in.

Zoon is the Kashmiri word for the moon, and for a woman of great beauty. Worked tone on tone in pewter and slate, it reads almost black in shadow and turns silver the moment light falls across it.

Kong is saffron, the crocus that turns the fields of Pampore purple for two weeks each year. The ground here is that exact colour, printed over with small dark boteh set in even rows.

Hashia is the border itself, the part of a shawl an artisan gives the most time to. The centre is left plain oat ivory so that the lapis and gold border, running on all four sides, becomes the whole design.

Daricha is a window, the small wooden casement of an old Kashmiri house. Charcoal lines cross this taupe ground like window bars, with embroidered flowers set exactly where they meet.

Nageen is the quieter of Srinagar's two lakes, named for the jewel green of its water. That colour returns as large aqua paisley across cream, with arched motifs standing at each end like willows.

Aftab is the sun. This oatmeal ground is set with ink black rosettes in a close, unbroken repeat: small dark suns held in rows, graphic enough to carry a plain black column.

Charkh is the wheel on which pashm is spun before a single stitch is made. Its rosettes turn across this grey taupe ground in gold and slate, each one drawn like a small wheel at rest.

Kehkashan is the milky way. Fine silver grey sprays are scattered loosely across an olive gold field, governed by no grid at all, the way stars are scattered and never in rows.

Doshala is the old Kashmiri name for shawls made and sold in pairs. This piece carries the idea in a single cloth: a natural grey field, and against it a deep black border of white flowering vine.

Gulposh means covered in flowers. One vine in copper and old rose travels the length of this pale grey lilac ground, flowering as it goes and never repeating itself exactly.

Badaam is the almond, and it is what Kashmiri artisans call the paisley, a shape drawn from the nut itself. Here it is enlarged and set far apart, blue violet outlined in gold.

Khamoshi is silence. This taupe grey shawl is worked in thread of its own colour from end to end, so it reads plain across a room and gives up its dense embroidery only in the hand.

Khatamband is the Kashmiri craft of locking small pieces of wood into a ceiling without a single nail. That grid returns here as a wide charcoal check laid over a fine tonal jaal.

Sheen is snow. This shawl is undyed and unembroidered, a fine self textured weave kept at exactly the colour the goat gave it, and the base note of the whole collection.