Description:

 Suzani is an embroidered textile made from cotton fabric and/or silk and is used as a decorative or household item in Uzbekistan. Popular design motifs include rosettes, flowers, and ancient symbols. Two traditional stitches are used in a majority of the pieces: primarily basma stitch and sometimes chain stitch. An incredible amount of time and care goes into the making of each piece.

Suzani comes from the Persian word for ‘needle’. In the olden days, women embroidered suzani using silk threads of various colors on silk or cotton fabric, leaving a small unfinished strip of cloth so that a young budding female embroiderer would consummate the creation. This was established as a way of passing the tradition on to the next generation and making sure that households would always relish in weddings, an event that is held sacred in Central Asian societies. Suznais were beleieved to have a magical power that protected families’happiness from evil. There existed various schools of suzani techniques such as “needle”, yorma, bigiz, etc. Each region had its own distinctive embroidery technique.