Densely worked mirror and thread embroidery from the Kutch region, with distinct stitch styles carried by different local communities.
कच्छ, गुजरात · Kutch, Gujarat
Kutch embroidery covers a family of related but distinct styles, Ahir, Rabari, Soof, and others, each associated with a specific pastoral or agricultural community and identifiable by its stitch technique and motif, with small mirrors (abhla) stitched into the pattern a signature shared across most of the region's styles.
Practiced largely by women within the communities that originated each style, Kutch embroidery has grown into a significant livelihood craft through cooperatives formed after the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, connecting village embroiderers directly to wider domestic and export markets.