Threads of Empire: Visual Evidence of How Colonial Rule Altered Zardozi and Court Embroidery
While northern workshops crumbled under direct British rule, the princely state of Hyderabad offered a distinct counter-example. Under the Asaf Jahi Nizams, Hyderabad remained an autonomous sovereign territory that did not experience immediate British administrative annexation. As northern centers faltered, Hyderabad's royal workshops took in displaced northern embroiderers.
Archival garments from the Chowmahalla Palace demonstrate that Hyderabadi craftsmen retained high-purity gold and silver wire well into the early 20th century. Nizami court attire featured dense borders along the hems of khada dupattas and velvet sherwanis, preserving techniques that had all but disappeared in British-governed Lucknow.
Even in Hyderabad, colonial economic policy caught up with the industry. Import tariffs on raw silk, combined with the flood of machine-made British threads, slowly squeezed local wire-drawers (zarkas). By the 1920s, chemical-tinsel substitutes made inroads even into Hyderabad’s elite workshops, proving how thoroughly industrial manufacturing reshaped luxury artisanal production across the subcontinent.
