The first time I sat in a Lahore karkhana and watched a karigar start a zardozi motif from nothing but a chalked outline, I asked him how long he'd been doing this. He said since he was eleven, taught by his father, who'd been taught by his father before that. Three generations, one small room, and every stitch still worked exactly the way it was fifty years ago. That's who is actually behind the embroidery on a Pakistani bridal outfit: not a factory, a person with a name and a family history in the craft.
At a glance: Pakistan's hand embroidery is produced almost entirely by skilled artisans called karigars, working in small ateliers called karkhanas concentrated mainly in Lahore, Karachi and Multan. Many learn the craft within their own families across generations rather than through formal training, and women make up a significant share of the embroidery workforce, particularly in home-based and community programmes. Understanding who makes an embroidered piece changes how you value it.
Who Are Pakistan's Embroidery Artisans?
Pakistan's embroidery artisans, known as karigars, are skilled tradespeople who typically specialise in a single technique, such as zardozi, aari, or mukaish, refined over years of practice rather than generalists who do a bit of everything. Most work within small, often family-run karkhanas rather than large factories, and the same karigar may spend weeks on a single bridal piece.
This specialisation is part of what makes hand embroidery slow. A karigar trained in zardozi's raised metal-thread work isn't necessarily the person you'd want doing fine aari chain-stitch detailing, and a serious bridal order often moves between two or three specialists before it's finished.
How Karigars Learn the Craft
Most karigars learn hand embroidery within their own families, starting as children by watching and gradually taking on small sections of a motif, rather than through formal schooling. Some skill-building programmes now exist to train new artisans in needlework, but family apprenticeship remains the dominant route into the craft.
I've noticed that the karigars with the steadiest hands, the ones whose work needs almost no correction, are nearly always the ones who started as children. It isn't something you can compress into a six-month course. There's a rhythm to hand embroidery that seems to only come from years of repetition, starting young.
Formal Training Alongside Family Apprenticeship
Formal skill centres and internship-style programmes have grown alongside traditional family apprenticeship in recent years, often pairing new artisans, disproportionately women, with basic literacy training and a needlework curriculum. These programmes supplement rather than replace the karkhana system, which still produces most of the country's highest-skilled karigars.
Inside a Karkhana: How Embroidery Work Actually Happens
A karkhana is typically a small, single-room workshop where fabric is stretched tight on a wooden frame and multiple karigars work different sections of the same piece simultaneously, coordinated by a senior craftsman, often called an ustad, who checks thread tension, motif placement and colour matching throughout.
I wrote about this process in more detail after spending a week inside one for our piece on an atelier week at La Soie, and in the story behind hand zardozi embroidery. The short version is that nothing about it is rushed, and nothing about it is automated. Every motif is placed by eye against a chalked guide, not a machine template.
The Regional Hubs: Lahore, Karachi, Multan
Pakistan's finest embroidery artisans are concentrated in Lahore, Karachi and Multan, each associated with slightly different specialities. Lahore and Karachi carry the bulk of zardozi and aari work for bridal wear, while Multan holds its own long tradition tied to Sufi textile craft, including the chadar work associated with local shrines.
In Karachi specifically, a lot of this work runs through embroidery markets like the one in Gizri, where dozens of small karigar shops sit within a few streets of each other, each specialising in slightly different work. It's the kind of concentration of skill you only get when a craft has been rooted in one neighbourhood for generations.
| Technique | Primary Hub | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Zardozi | Lahore, Karachi | Raised metallic thread, dimensional |
| Aari | Karachi | Hook-needle chain-stitch, fine detail |
| Mukaish | Lahore | Flat metallic shimmer, karkhana flatwork |
| Gota | Multan, Lahore | Ribbon trim application |
| Sufiana / shrine motifs | Multan | Devotional textile tradition |
Women in Pakistan's Embroidery Economy
Women form a substantial part of Pakistan's embroidery workforce, particularly in home-based and community-run programmes, where needlework provides income that can be earned around domestic responsibilities. For many families, embroidery income is not supplementary, it is a primary source of household earnings.
Clients rarely ask about this side of the industry, but I think it matters to say plainly: when you buy a hand-embroidered piece, a meaningful share of what you're paying for is going directly into households where that income carries real weight, not into a factory's overhead.
Why Artisan Skill Is Disappearing, and What's Being Done
Hand embroidery skill in Pakistan faces genuine generational risk, as younger family members increasingly move toward other work rather than continuing a karigar tradition that demands years to master for modest daily pay. Training programmes and brands that commit to hand-embroidered orders are among the few forces actively keeping the pipeline of skilled karigars from shrinking.
This is part of why I don't think "handmade" should be treated as a marketing word. I go into the practical side of that choice in why Pakistani brides choose handmade over mass-produced, but the craft-preservation side matters just as much as the quality side.
How La Soie Works With Artisans
At La Soie, every hand-embroidered piece in our Abresham and Mohak Embroidered collections is worked by karigars we return to season after season, because consistency of relationship is how quality stays consistent too.
We'd rather commission fewer pieces from artisans we trust than scale hand embroidery past what genuine karigar capacity allows. International coverage of Pakistani craft has increasingly picked up on this exact tension between scale and skill, and it's one we think about with every order we place. Pakistan's textile industry bodies track the broader economics of this workforce closely, and the pattern holds everywhere: skilled hand work does not scale the way machine work does, and it was never going to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a karigar?
A karigar is a skilled Pakistani craftsperson specialising in a hand embroidery technique such as zardozi, aari, or mukaish, typically trained within their own family across generations rather than through formal schooling.
How long does it take to train as an embroidery artisan in Pakistan?
Most karigars begin as children, learning by watching and gradually taking on small sections of work, and reach genuine mastery only after many years of continuous practice. There is no standard formal timeline, since family apprenticeship rarely follows a fixed course structure.
Where is most Pakistani hand embroidery made?
Lahore, Karachi and Multan are the country's primary embroidery hubs, each with slightly different specialities, from zardozi and aari bridal work in Lahore and Karachi to Sufi-influenced textile traditions in Multan.
Do women make up most of Pakistan's embroidery workforce?
Women form a substantial share of the embroidery workforce, particularly in home-based and community-run needlework programmes, where the income often plays a primary role in household earnings rather than a supplementary one.
What is a karkhana?
A karkhana is a small embroidery workshop, often a single room, where fabric is stretched on a frame and multiple karigars work sections of the same piece under the supervision of a senior craftsman who checks tension, placement and colour matching.
Why does hand embroidery cost more than machine embroidery?
The price reflects karigar labour hours rather than fabric cost. A fully hand-embroidered piece can involve weeks of specialised work across multiple artisans, while machine embroidery is produced at factory speed and scale.
If you want to see this craftsmanship directly, our Abresham Embroidered collection and Mohak Embroidered collection are built entirely on the karigar relationships described here. Browse the complete edit at La Soie.
