On Tuesday, a fashion blogger named Aamir Ali Shah shared a post on Instagram, explaining the print on Sonam’s outfit in detail. He shared that the chintz print fabric has a unique history, and that many use the print without having any knowledge about the fabric. Aamir Ali wrote that he recently read a comment on Sonam Kapoor’s picture in the dress, wherein the Netizen asked what’s so extraordinary about the outfit, and that it ‘looks like a bedsheet’. He said that while these ‘Chintz’ prints are now widely used for bedsheets, curtains and upholstery, it originated as ‘cheent’ along the Coromandel coast of India. The Chintz helped revolutionize fashion globally, and was once highly valued all over the world.
He added, “Before Europe came to “claim” these prints, cheent a plain weave glazed cotton fabric was printed, or painted in vivid colors and was traded across seas for decades. Europeans lapped up ‘indiene’ design to make their homes lush with vibrant madder and indigo colors depicting exotic flora and fauna, which was a necessity given the weather outside was often grey and cloudy. Until 17th century trade in these Indian printed cottons flourished then European fabric manufacturers protested and even rioted against ‘the tawdry, bespotted’ cottons made by ‘Heathens and Pagans’.” He added that colonial enterprises banned cotton from India, which led to imitation chintz being produced in Netherlands, Britain and France. Following this, the motifs were made to depict European birds and plants.
