Amethyst Ikat Kaftan

Amethyst and lavender on white, the two purples separated by a narrow line of undyed warp that reads almost as a third colour. Floor length, open at the front, and light enough to wear indoors through the summer.

Product details

• Garment: a long open kaftan
• Cloth: handwoven silk-cotton ikat
• Size: one size, cut generously and worn open — custom lengths and sleeve lengths on request
• Main colours: amethyst purple, lavender, white
• Motif: columns of pointed figures in purple on white
• Open front, no fastening
• Care: dry-clean, or hand wash cool and dry in the shade.
• Cloth handwoven in Margilan; garment cut and sewn in Tashkent

How to wear it

Worn open over a plain base — a shift, a shirt and jeans, anything unpatterned. It descends from the chapan, the long coat Uzbeks have worn open over everything else for centuries, cut lighter here and unlined. Nothing else in the outfit needs to do any work. See the robes and chapans, or the cloth itself as ikat fabric by the metre.

How this ikat is made

The pattern is not printed on the cloth and it is not embroidered into it. Every thread of the warp is tied off in bundles and dyed, one colour at a time, before a single row is woven — a process called abrbandi, cloud-binding, for the soft feathered edge it leaves on every motif. The cloth is handwoven in Margilan in the Fergana Valley. The garment is then cut and sewn in our atelier in Tashkent.

Made to order in our Tashkent atelier and dispatched within 18–25 days, by Uzbekiston Pochtasi tracked airmail. One size, cut generously and worn open. For a different length or sleeve, send your measurements through the contact page and the piece is cut to them at no extra cost.