A fascinating journey into Kashmir Shawls

Posted by Chen Yu on April 08, 2022

Welcom to Gift A Pashmina!

Our Journey began in 2015, with our first trip to the beautiful, heavenly Kashmir Valley, the 'paradise on earth',

A beautiful view of the city of Srinagar with the river, houses on the river side and mountains in the far away view.

It was here I were introduced to the gorgeous art of Kashmir Shawls, a 600 years old heritage art that once made the name for Kashmir for its splendid, sophisticated textile art and craftsmanship,

The author is sitting next to an embroidery artist watching him work.

The art of Kashmir Shawls reveals a great deal of artistic and cultural values of Oriental textile art, blending the influences of ancient Arabic, Indian, Sikh into a unique, out-worldly sophisticated and advanced style, that later influenced greatly the modern day textile making of the West and the East.

A mustard Kani pashmina shawl with a big end panel design.

It was inspiring to see how the entire industry managed to survive after retreating for a whole century largely due to political turmoils and loss of aged gurus and masters. and even thrive, by the efforts of generations of shawl manufacturers, weavers, artists.

A master embroidery artist is hand stitching a pashmina shawl, sitting outside in the natural day light, with the shawl laid on his knees.

A male embroidery artist hand stitching a shawl.

Since more than 7 years we have been working with local partners in designing, manufacturing and collection of unique, high quality shawls with consideration of the modern day aesthetics.

What inspires us more is The Way Forward - Wearable, Every Day Looks are some of our main drivers. Today we all desire designs and styles that are easy to wear, unique, characteristic and can relate to us. Traditional arts and crafts have so much to offer, we are excited about the creative possibilities to make them more fashionable for a wider audience.

Inspired by the Kashmir Shawl project, we later took on similar missions towards ethical jewelry and cultural accessories.

A collar silver necklace placed in a Thangka patterned wooden tray.

The Meaning of "H"

Finding the right name for the project has been quite a challenge. After a lot of thinking and soul searching, we landed on a capitalized H which incorporates some of the fundamental values that inspired us from the beginning.

H = Himalayas

This is a journey into the Great Himalayas, based on many journeys in the past through this corridor between the East and the West, through a time when various culture, religion, aesthetic styles blended and evolved. The Himalayan regions remain the source of our inspiration to explore and

H = Humanity

One of the fundamental elements we feel inspired by traditional art and crafts is the connection between mankind and nature, the profound appreciation, love and respect that is embedded in the works.

H = Hommage

This is also a tribute to the unsung heroes, the countless artists, artisans, weavers and makers whose creations have traveled in time and distances, but whose names were unknown. We want to share their stories, and hopefully continue the creative journey with some fresh perspectives.

As the journey continues, we get new inspirations all the time. We believe the past holds many answers to the questions we seek answers today.

We look forward to continuing this journey with you!

Yu Chen

Founder, Designer, Creative Director, Blogger

April 8, 2022

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