Ikat, silk saree from Indonesia: what it is and how it is worn

Ikat is a resist-dyeing method from Southeast Asia in which bundles of yarn are bound, dyed and then woven. Because the pattern is made in the threads rather than printed on the cloth, it looks slightly blurred and shows on both faces.

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Ikat means to bind in Malay and other Malayo-Polynesian languages
Both faces of an ikat cloth are patterned, because the design is in the yarns
Double ikat is made in only three countries: India, Japan and Indonesia
Patan patola from Gujarat is called the most complicated double ikat
Uyghur atlas once had 27 types; four remain today

What is Ikat?

Ikat is a way of patterning cloth by dyeing the yarns before they are woven. Bundles of thread are tied tightly with a dye-resistant wrapping, dipped in colour, and untied only when the pattern is complete. Because the design sits in the threads, both sides of the finished fabric carry it. The pattern tends to look slightly soft or blurred where the dyed yarns do not meet exactly. Ikat is worked in Indonesia, India, Japan and other parts of the world. In India it makes the six-metre Patan patola sari of Gujarat, the Puttapaka sari of Telangana, and Khandua cloth in Odisha.

Where does Ikat come from?

Ikat weaving in Southeast Asia is thought to go back to Neolithic loom traditions, more than six thousand years old, carried by Austronesian and Daic-speaking peoples. From mainland Asia it moved with the Austronesian expansion across maritime Southeast Asia and reached Madagascar by the first millennium BC. A 2012 study of looms, patterns and language rejected an earlier idea that the technique arrived through contact with Vietnam's Dong Son culture. Names in Malay and related Indonesian languages gave us the word ikat, which Rouffaer brought into European use. Similar techniques arose separately in India, Central Asia, Japan, Africa and the Americas.

How is Ikat made?

The yarns, whether cotton, silk or wool, are wound onto a tying frame and divided into bundles. A bundle may be folded so that one binding repeats many times when it is opened out. Each bundle is wrapped tightly in dye-resistant thread, or sometimes wax, and dipped. Tying and dyeing are repeated for every colour in the design. Then the bindings come off and the yarns go onto the loom as warp. Bamboo strips are lashed across them so the threads do not slip and the motifs stay in line. Weft ikat is slower still, because the weft must be nudged into place after each pass of the shuttle.

Ikat, drawn

The cloth Field indigo with red, peacock motif. Drawn from this page, not from one saree.

Draped A sketch of the usual Nivi wrap in this saree's colours.

Ikat: yarn is resist-dyed before weaving, so the finished pattern has a soft, feathered edge.

Satin weave: the warp floats over four wefts before it is caught, which gives silk its smooth, bright face.

Colours, motifs and borders

Blurriness is the mark of ikat. It happens because lining up dyed yarns perfectly is very hard; finer yarns and a skilled hand reduce it. Sharper patterning in many colours takes more work and costs more, yet collectors often prize the soft edge. Some traditions, such as Central Asia's, welcome the blur, while South American and Indonesian weavers aim for exact alignment. Warp patterns can run vertically, horizontally or diagonally, and some are mirrored about a central group of threads. Japanese weavers make small indigo and white motifs; Thai weavers set birds and geometry into seven-colour silk.

How Ikat is worn

Ikat is a cloth and a technique rather than one garment. In India the Patan double ikat is woven as a six-metre sari on fine silk, and Puttapaka in Telangana gives its name to another double ikat sari. Khandua cloth in Odisha is worn as a sari too. In Central Asia, Uyghur atlas is used for women's clothing, with different cloth for girls, married women and older women. Persian daraee was bought by wealthy families. In Sulawesi, a Torajan shroud called a porilonjong wraps the dead.

When Ikat is worn

Among the Toraja of Sulawesi, patterned cloth serves as a funeral shroud, so it belongs to rites for the dead. In Iran, daraee was often part of a bride's dowry, and only well-off households could buy it. Uyghur atlas is everyday women's wear, graded by colour and pattern to suit the wearer's age and married status: black for older women, red for girls, and yellow, blue or purple for married women. Ikat textiles were also traded widely as goods of value.

Styles of Ikat

There are three broad kinds. Warp ikat dyes only the lengthwise threads, and the pattern is visible on the loom before weaving starts; it is made by Dayaks in Kalimantan, Torajans in Sulawesi and Bataks in Sumatra. Weft ikat dyes the crosswise threads, in Bali called endek, and the design only appears as the cloth grows. Double ikat dyes both, and is the hardest and costliest; it is still made in India, Japan and Indonesia. The Patan patola of Gujarat is counted the most complicated, and Tenganan in Bali borrows motifs from it.

What Ikat means

Value and trade run through ikat's story. Patan patola was so sought after that the Dutch East India Company exchanged it for exclusive spice rights with Indonesian sultanates, and Tenganan weavers in Bali took some of their motifs straight from it. Persian daraee means wealth, a name that says who could afford it. In Central Asia, the number of atlas patterns fell from twenty-seven under Qing rule to four today. Collectors still prize the blurred edge, and the name ikat now travels far beyond the region it came from.

Questions people ask about Ikat

Where does ikat come from?

The technique and its name come from Southeast Asia, and it is most closely associated with Indonesia, where the word ikat originates. Austronesian and Daic-speaking peoples carried it across the region, reaching Madagascar by the first millennium BC. Very similar methods were also developed independently in India, Japan, Central Asia and the Americas.

How is ikat made?

Yarns are wound onto a frame, divided into bundles and tied tightly with dye-resistant wrapping in the pattern wanted. They are then dyed, retied and dyed again for each colour. The bindings are removed and the yarns woven into cloth, so the pattern is already in the threads before weaving begins.

Why does ikat look blurred?

Lining up every dyed yarn so the pattern meets exactly is extremely difficult, and a slight shift shows in the finished cloth. Finer yarns and a very skilled weaver reduce the blur. Some traditions aim for precision, while others, including Central Asian weavers, treat the softness as part of the design.

What is double ikat?

In double ikat both the lengthwise and the crosswise yarns are tied and dyed before weaving, so the two sets of pattern meet in the cloth. It takes the most skill and costs the most. It is still produced in India, Japan and Indonesia, and the Patan patola of Gujarat is the most complex of all.

Is ikat used for saris?

Yes. Patan double ikat in Gujarat is woven as a six-metre sari, and Puttapaka in Telangana and Khandua in Odisha are sari traditions too. In Japan the technique is called kasuri, in Bali endek, and in Central Asia atlas, where it is used for women's clothing.

Good reading and sources

Where this page comes from

The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Ikat", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryPallu rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.

It may contain mistakes. Traditions, weaves and prices differ from one weaver, town or shop to the next, and it is not buying advice. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-03.

Ikat