The Leher Earrings are named for a wave, and the fabric earned the name honestly. Before that cloth was ever cut, it was rolled on the diagonal, bound tightly at intervals along its length, and lowered into dye. The bands that emerged run like moving water. That technique belongs to a family, and the best-known member of that family is bandhani.
If you grew up in Gujarat you have seen bandhani your whole life: on the chunni kept folded in tissue at the back of a cupboard, on the gharchola at every wedding, on the odhnis sold outside every temple. Familiarity has a cost, though. Most people have never been told how it is actually made, or how much of what is sold as bandhani today has never been near a knot.
What is bandhani?
Bandhani is a resist-dyeing technique in which thousands of tiny points of fabric are pinched up and tied off with thread before the cloth is dyed. The tied points keep the dye out. When the threads are opened, each one has left behind a small undyed dot, and the dots together form the pattern.
The word comes from the Sanskrit bandha, to tie. In Gujarat the craft is generally called bandhani or bandhej; the two words mean the same thing and the choice between them is regional habit rather than any difference in technique. It was the Khatri community of Gujarat who established the craft, and Khatri families still work it in Kutch, Jamnagar, Bhuj and Anjar, alongside centres in Jaipur, Sikar and Jodhpur across the border in Rajasthan.
The part that is hard to believe
The tying stage: a single point of cloth pinched up and bound with thread before any dye is used.
A single bandhani saree can carry anywhere from ten thousand to a hundred thousand individual knots. Each one is pinched up and tied by a person, by hand, one after another.
Artisans, most of them women working at home, often grow one fingernail long and file it to a point, or wear a small pointed metal ring, in order to pick up a precise few threads of cloth. The fabric is folded into layers first so that each tie produces four or eight or sixteen dots at once, which is the only reason the work is possible at all. Even so, a densely worked piece can take months.
When you next see a bandhani odhni priced at a few hundred rupees, that arithmetic is worth holding in mind. It is the clearest single indicator that something in the chain is not what it claims to be.
How bandhani is made
1. Marking. The design is stamped onto the folded fabric with washable dye, usually from a perforated wooden block or a pricked paper stencil, giving the tier a grid of points to follow.
2. Tying. Each marked point is pinched up and bound with tight thread. This is the slow part and it is the whole craft.
3. Dyeing light to dark. The cloth goes into the palest colour first. It is dried, more sections are tied to protect that colour, and it goes into the next dye bath. Multi-colour bandhani repeats this cycle several times, so the sequence of dyeing is planned before a single knot is tied.
4. Opening. The threads are pulled out, traditionally by giving the cloth a sharp tug that releases many at once. The pattern appears all at the same moment.
Bandhani vs leheriya
Bandhani on the left, leheriya on the right. Both are tied before dyeing; only the method of tying differs.
These two get confused constantly, and the difference is simple once you see it stated plainly.
Bandhani makes dots. The fabric is tied at thousands of separate points, so the resist happens in isolated specks that build into motifs: flowers, bells, elephants, dancing figures.
Leheriya makes stripes. The fabric is rolled diagonally into a long rope and bound at intervals along that rope. There are no individual points. When the roll is opened, the resist reads as continuous diagonal bands running across the cloth. The name comes from lehar, wave.
Leheriya is a Rajasthani speciality, strongly associated with Jaipur and Jodhpur and traditionally worked on light cottons and georgettes. It carries strong monsoon and Teej associations, which suits it: the pattern looks like rain falling at a slant. Panchranga leheriya uses five colours, satranga uses seven, and both were historically markers of status.
Both techniques are resist dyeing. Both are tied before dyeing. The difference lies entirely in whether you tie points or tie a roll.
What the colours meant
Bandhani was never purely decorative. Red bandhani belonged to brides and is still the dominant wedding colour across Gujarat and Rajasthan. Jamnagar built a particular reputation for its reds, credited locally to the mineral content of its water. Yellow grounds were associated with new mothers. The gharchola, a bandhani piece gridded with zari checks, remains a specific bridal garment in Gujarati weddings rather than a general pattern.
Motifs carried names and meanings too: chandrakhani for moon-like forms, shikari for hunting scenes, ambadal for mango clusters. A woman could read a stranger's community and marital status off her odhni.
How to spot real bandhani
Feel for the bumps. Genuine bandhani is not pressed flat after dyeing. Run a palm across it and you should feel a fine, irregular pucker where every knot sat. Printed imitations are smooth.
Look for the crinkle. Real bandhani arrives with a crushed, gathered texture. It is a by-product of thousands of ties and it is a feature, not damage. Perfectly flat, evenly ironed bandhani is usually printed.
Turn it over. Because the resist works right through the cloth, the pattern appears on the reverse almost as strongly as the front. A print leaves a pale or blank back.
Check whether the dots are identical. Hand-tied dots vary in size, shape and spacing, and cluster slightly where the tier's hand moved. Machine prints repeat exactly. Perfect uniformity is the giveaway.
See if it is still tied. This is the strongest test of all. Much genuine bandhani is sold with a portion of the knots still in place, so the buyer opens them at home. A merchant who leaves the knots in is showing you the evidence deliberately.
Be sceptical of neon. Traditional palettes run to earthy reds, saffrons, indigos, maroons and greens, with slight unevenness across the cloth. Flat fluorescent shades usually mean synthetic mass production.
Caring for bandhani
- Hand wash separately in cold water for the first several washes. Tie-dyed colour releases a little at first, then settles.
- Use a mild detergent and never soak. Extended soaking pulls colour out of the resisted areas.
- Dry in shade, never in direct sun, which fades hand-dyed colour quickly.
- Do not iron the crinkle out unless you want to lose it. Ironing flattens the texture that proves the piece is real.
- Store folded in cotton or muslin, not plastic, and refold along different lines occasionally so creases do not set.
- If something spills, treat it from the reverse in cold water. Our stain removal guide covers hand-dyed cloth specifically.
Why we work with it
We are based in Ahmedabad, which puts us a few hours from the workshops where this craft has been practised for centuries. The Leher Earrings use lehariya fabric rather than bandhani specifically, because the wave reads better at the scale of jewellery than a dot pattern does. But the reasoning is the same one behind our Ajrakh block print and our handwoven ikat: we would rather carry a technique that took someone's hands and hours than a printed picture of it.
You can read more about our makers in how we make things, and about the thinking behind slower production in made slowly, made to last.
Frequently asked questions
Is bandhani the same as bandhej?
Yes. Both come from the Sanskrit bandha, to tie, and describe the same tie-resist technique. Bandhej is used more commonly in parts of Rajasthan, bandhani in Gujarat.
What is the difference between bandhani and leheriya?
Bandhani ties thousands of individual points and produces dots. Leheriya rolls the fabric diagonally and ties the roll, producing diagonal stripes. Both are resist-dyed before the pattern exists.
Why is real bandhani crinkled?
Because it is not ironed flat after the knots are opened. The pucker is the physical trace of every tie and it is one of the easiest ways to identify genuine work.
Why is bandhani expensive?
A single piece may hold tens of thousands of hand-tied knots, plus several rounds of dyeing. The price reflects weeks or months of skilled labour.
Where is the best bandhani made?
Kutch, Jamnagar, Bhuj and Anjar in Gujarat are the historic centres, along with Jaipur, Sikar and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Jamnagar is particularly known for its reds.
Related reading
- What is Ajrakh? The ancient block-printing technique behind our stoles
- What is ikat? How to tell a real woven ikat from a print
- Handloom vs powerloom: how to tell the difference before you buy
- How to remove stains from ethnic wear
See the wave in person on the Leher Earrings, or browse the full earrings collection.