Kasavu

What is Kasavu?

Kasavu is a Kerala handloom technique. Very fine thread of gold or silver is worked into the weave, where it forms border lines and patterns on cotton or silk cloth. The best-known result is plain white or off-white cotton with a kasavu border, often simply called the Kerala saree. Malayali women and men both wear garments made this way. Women drape two pieces, the mundu below and the veshti above, over a red, green or gold blouse; men wrap the mundu and may add a formal shirt. The cloth is light, and the border is where the metal shows.

Where does Kasavu come from?

The white or off-white cloth with a kasavu border comes from Kerala, and it is thought to be the earliest use of the technique. The two-piece drape has deep roots; the Antariya and Uttariya garments of early Buddhist, Jain and Hindu writing are named as its ancestors. Royal households in Kerala backed the commercial weaving of fine zari, and weaving families gained standing that way across the 1500s to the 1800s. One account credits Maharaja Avattam Thirunal Balaramavarma and Ummini Thambi with bringing it to Kerala in the early 19th century and inviting the saliya or Chaliyan weavers from Nagercoil; the Travancore court bought hand-woven cotton from them. Dutch and Portuguese traders took notice, and the sarees grew popular.

How is Kasavu made?

Kasavu is woven, not printed or dyed. On a handloom a weaver lays very fine gold or silver thread into the cloth so that it sits in the border and in any pattern beside it. The base is usually cotton, sometimes silk, and the metal thread is what gives the technique its name. The earliest work was done entirely by hand, and hand-woven cloth is still made in Kerala villages. Machine looms now produce much of the cloth sold. That cloth is cheaper and comes in quantity, but the surface does not feel the same as the hand-woven kind.

Colours, motifs and borders

The traditional look is plain white or off-white cloth with a border of gold or silver. Border width is the main measure of a piece: it can be under three-quarters of an inch or run to six inches and more. Older cloth used pure gold thread. When gold and silver grew too costly, weavers turned to other threads, and newer borders mix red, green or orange with the gold. The white cloth stays the ground; colour comes in at the border and in the blouse under the upper drape.

How Kasavu is worn

The older way to wear kasavu is in two pieces. The mundu is a long rectangle wrapped around the lower body; the veshti, a second rectangle, covers the upper body. Women put a red, green or gold blouse beneath the veshti, and men sometimes wear a formal shirt instead. Many women now choose a single-piece saree in place of the pair. No stitched garment is involved beyond the blouse.

When Kasavu is worn

Malayalis wear kasavu for festivals, dances and family occasions, women and men alike. Weddings and piranna naal, birthdays counted by the local calendar, are among the times it comes out. At Vishu a brand new kasavu cloth is laid beside the Vishukkani lamp as a mark of prosperity. Performers of Mohiniyattam, the dance of Vishnu in female form, wear only kasavu garments, and the clapping dances Kaikottikali and Thiruvathirakkali are performed by women in kasavu sarees with red blouses.

Styles of Kasavu

The pair of mundu and veshti, called a kasavu set or settu, is the older form; the single saree is the later one. Borders differ most of all, since a narrow line and a broad band change the whole look. Beyond Kerala the technique has travelled to other parts of India, and Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, all neighbours, weave it as well. Hand-woven and powerloom cloth sit side by side in the market, and the machine-made kind is easier to tell by touch.

What Kasavu means

For Malayalis the white cloth with its metal border carries a sense of home, and Vishu gives it a fixed place in the household year. Some Kerala villages live by this weaving. Kuthampully, near Ottapalam between Thrissur and Palakkad, is one of them; the Devanga chettiar weavers settled there after the Maharaja of Kochin brought them from Karnataka, by the account of the record, some five hundred years ago. The whole village makes the cloth, gathers what it has woven and sells it through one shared market.

Days Kasavu is worn for

Questions people ask about Kasavu

Good reading and sources

• For 500 years, a Kannadiga community of weavers has produced Kerala’s iconic white and gold sareeScroll.in, Article

• Kasavu on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data