Aari work in Padmanabhapuram
ஆரி வேலை · பத்மநாபபுரம்
Traditional zari and temple-motif work for Padmanabhapuram and around.
Ask about your designWork is done by hand in Nagercoil and finished pieces are returned to customers in Padmanabhapuram. Send a photograph of the design on WhatsApp and you will get a straight answer on what it takes and what it costs.
Padmanabhapuram, next to Thuckalay, was the old Travancore capital, and something of that shows in what customers there ask for.
Traditional motifs
More requests here than anywhere else in the district are for the older vocabulary - mango and vine borders, peacocks, the temple lamp, the elephant - worked in gold and antique-gold zari rather than in coloured stone. Those designs are older than any of the trends and they are the reason the craft exists.
They are also more demanding. A vine border has to run evenly around a curve, and an eye that has seen a hundred of them will spot the one place it does not. That is fine. It is what hand work is for.
Heirloom sarees
The other thing that comes from Padmanabhapuram is old, good sarees. Somebody has their mother's or grandmother's silk and wants a blouse worked to match it, or wants the pallu given work rather than the saree replaced.
Old fabric needs handling carefully - it will not always take a heavy design, and forcing one on it is how a saree gets ruined. If that is the case you will be told before anything is started.
How an order works
Nothing here needs a shop visit to begin. Most orders start and finish on WhatsApp.
- 01
Send the design
A photograph on WhatsApp is enough - something you have seen, saved from Instagram, or drawn. Tell us the date you need it by.
- 02
Get a straight answer
What it will take, what it will cost, and whether it can be done in the time you have. If it cannot, you will be told that rather than strung along.
- 03
Measurements or a blouse that fits
Come and be measured, or send an old blouse that fits you well. Bring your own material - most customers do, and it costs less.
- 04
The work itself
The design is traced, the fabric stretched on a frame, and every bead, stone and length of zari worked in by hand. Two to three weeks for bridal work.
- 05
Collected or delivered
Ready to collect in Nagercoil, or sent to you anywhere in Kanyakumari district.
Questions about Padmanabhapuram
- Can you work on an old silk saree?
- Often, but it has to be looked at first. Old fabric will not always take a heavy design, and forcing one onto it is how a good saree gets ruined. If that is the case you will be told before anything is started rather than after.
Send the design and get a straight answer
A photograph of what you have in mind and the date you need it by is enough to quote from.