Lucknow’s Chikankari is moving beyond the familiar kurta and pastel palette, with young designers placing the centuries-old embroidery on denim jackets, tuxedo shirts, blazers, winter wear and everyday clothing. The shift is more than a fashion update. It shows how a city’s traditional craft economy is trying to remain visible, commercially relevant and connected to a new generation of consumers.
The change is being led by designers who are treating Chikankari not as a fixed product but as a living design language. Their collections retain local motifs and techniques while changing the silhouettes, colours and occasions associated with the craft. Menswear, workwear, travel clothing and contemporary wardrobes have become new spaces for Lucknow’s embroidery.
That transition matters in a city where Chikankari is closely tied to cultural identity and livelihoods. The designers quoted in the report describe an ecosystem negotiating several pressures at once: industrialisation, market saturation, changing consumer preferences and the risk that traditional craft could become a ceremonial or museum-bound object rather than a part of everyday urban life.
## From occasion wear to everyday wardrobes
For Anam Khan, founder of Hum Chikankari, the central challenge is to make the craft wearable beyond weddings and other special occasions. Her label uses Chikankari on denim jackets, kaftans, blazers and stoles, alongside skirts, shirts and waistcoats.
Khan describes the approach as giving Awadhi embroidery a contemporary personality. The objective is not simply to create a newer product category, but to place the craft in the daily routines of college students, young professionals and other consumers who may not otherwise buy traditional clothing regularly.
This change in use is significant. A craft associated mainly with festive dressing has a limited number of purchase occasions. Everyday clothing expands the number of times it can enter a consumer’s wardrobe. It also changes the relationship between the buyer and the craft: instead of being reserved for a special event, Chikankari can become part of office wear, travel clothing or casual dressing.
The approach also reflects the way urban consumers increasingly use clothing to express identity. Designers quoted in the report say younger buyers want clothing that communicates a distinct personal style. Chikankari’s survival in this market therefore depends partly on whether its visual language can be adapted without losing its connection to Lucknow.
## A new canvas for menswear
One of the clearest signs of this adaptation is the expansion of Chikankari into menswear. Shubhangi Bajpayee, founder of Salooka, has developed drop-shoulder T-shirts, tuxedo Chikankari shirts, waistcoats and Mukaish partywear shirts for men.
Bajpayee’s work draws from the salooka, a historic Awadhi garment, but translates that reference into modern silhouettes. She also created a lungi suit and reworked a tuxedo dress shirt for actor Vir Das, who wore the design to the 52nd Emmy Awards in 2024. According to Bajpayee, the shirt used Chikankari embroidery on one side while retaining the structure of a formal tuxedo shirt.
The example illustrates how local craft can travel into national and international cultural spaces when it is presented through contemporary clothing. It also points to a commercial opportunity that has historically been narrower for menswear. Traditional Chikankari retail has often been associated with kurtas and other familiar garments, while younger designers are testing shirts, jackets, trousers and formalwear as alternative formats.
Bajpayee says artisans are also engaging with newer patterns and that her work seeks to revive designs such as kherki and chashme bulbul. She is additionally bringing Mukaish back into handloom menswear. These efforts suggest that design evolution is not necessarily a break from tradition; it can also be a way of recovering techniques and motifs that have become less visible in the contemporary market.
## Architecture, comfort and the Lucknow identity
Aashna Aggarwal, founder of Orthodox, has approached the craft through structure and proportion. She says her work is influenced by Lucknow’s architecture, particularly arches, symmetry, lines and proportions. Those references are translated into contemporary clothing intended for young women and men.
This architectural connection is important because it places Chikankari within the broader visual identity of the city. Lucknow’s built form, historic garments and embroidery traditions are being treated as related sources of design rather than separate cultural categories. The city becomes not just the location where the craft is produced, but part of the creative vocabulary used to reinterpret it.
Naghma Parveen, founder of Naghma Chikankari, takes a different route. Her focus is on loose, comfortable silhouettes, including drop shoulders and non-body-fitted pieces. She argues that Chikankari was traditionally associated with fine muslin and delicate embroidery that could be worn comfortably through Lucknow’s summers.
Her criticism is directed at the gradual transformation of the craft into heavily embellished occasion wear through the use of Aari, Zardozi and Mukaish. In her view, that shift has weakened the relaxed quality, or itminaan, historically associated with Chikankari. Her response is to make garments that allow people to move and live in the embroidery rather than reserve it for formal events.
The contrast between the designers is revealing. Some are using bold colours and structured garments; others are returning to comfort and lightness. Together, they show that the contemporary revival is not one uniform trend. It is a set of different strategies for reconnecting the craft with present-day habits.
## From pastel conventions to stronger colour
Harshi, founder of Chikankari Hues, is challenging another established association: the dominance of pastel colours. Her Chikankari Baddie collection includes dresses, blazers, woollen shirts and wide-leg pants in brighter colours, designed for travel, work and everyday use.
She describes the existing market as saturated with similar designs and says the intention is to evolve the craft while keeping the art intact. Her colour references include the strong tones of haldi and red chilli, as well as the peach shade of a fried kachori. Such references connect fashion experimentation to the ordinary visual world of Lucknow rather than to an abstract idea of tradition.
The introduction of Chikankari into winter boardroom clothing is also a practical market intervention. It expands the craft beyond summer-friendly kurtas and festive outfits and places it within professional wardrobes. Blazers, woollen shirts and wide-leg trousers offer a way for embroidery to enter workplaces without requiring consumers to adopt conventional ethnic silhouettes.
This is where the craft’s urban economy intersects with changing patterns of work and consumption. A city’s design traditions remain commercially alive when they can respond to how residents travel, work, socialise and dress. The designers’ emphasis on workwear, travel clothing and everyday use reflects that reality.
## The problem of continuity after industrialisation
The report’s deeper concern is continuity. Bajpayee says many young Lucknow residents are trying to work on the craft’s evolution after an interruption caused by industrialisation. She argues that only a limited number of people are currently developing the craft in ways that connect with a new generation.
This points to a structural challenge faced by traditional urban crafts. Preservation alone cannot guarantee survival. If a craft is maintained only as a historical form, it may retain symbolic value while losing its place in ordinary economic and social life. At the same time, change without attention to technique, motifs and local knowledge can weaken the identity that makes the craft distinctive.
The designers featured in the report are attempting to occupy the space between those two risks. They retain Chikankari, Mukaish and Awadhi references while changing the garments, colours and settings in which they appear. Some are reviving older motifs; others are using familiar symbols such as mahi maratib and kache aam ki keri in new placements.
That process also gives consumers a way to recognise Lucknow in contemporary clothing. A familiar motif can acquire a different meaning when moved from a traditional kurta to a jacket, blazer or formal shirt. The craft remains locally identifiable while becoming legible to consumers who may prefer modern silhouettes.
## What the revival reveals about the city
Lucknow’s Chikankari revival is therefore not only a fashion story. It is a case study in how urban cultural economies adapt. Designers, artisans and consumers are negotiating the relationship between inherited skills and current demand. The outcome depends on whether the craft can generate enough new forms of use to support continued production and interest.
The report does not establish the size of this market or measure how many artisans are benefiting from the new collections. It also does not provide data on sales, employment or the distribution of value across designers, retailers and craft workers. Those gaps matter because design visibility does not automatically translate into improved livelihoods.
What the interviews do establish is the direction of experimentation. Young designers in Lucknow are placing Chikankari in menswear, workwear, winter clothing and casual wardrobes. They are using stronger colours, relaxed fits, architectural references and older motifs to challenge the idea that the craft belongs only to pastel ethnic wear or special occasions.
The central question is whether this creative shift can become a durable urban craft economy. For now, the evidence points to a generation trying to keep Chikankari on the streets, in workplaces and in everyday wardrobes rather than allowing it to become a static artefact displayed only as heritage. The next measure of the revival will be whether these new forms can sustain artisan participation and consumer demand over time.
