CIRCA: 1920’s / 1930
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The kira is a traditional Bhutanese garment worn by women which is made from three lengths of cloth woven on a backstrap loom and then stitched together to create a rectangular panel. They are worn wrapped around the body, pinned at each shoulder with a brooch and secured at the waist with a wide woven belt. Although there are many different styles of kira, the most highly regarded is the kushuthara style, which traditionally was reserved for royalty and worn only on special occasions. Their aesthetic qualities, together with the use of such fine materials make the wearing of these garments an overt expression of personal wealth. They are characterized by their high silk content and the use of finely executed sammah (aka sapma) and timah (aka thrima) brocade-work* for the detailed silk motifs which are executed on a white or off-white ground and the more luxuriant ones may take up to two years to complete. This is one such elaborate example.
*The sammah / sapma patterning is composed with supplementary wefts that appear to lie on the face of the finished textile (i.e. ‘floating’ on the face); when not floating, they are laid in with the wefts of the ground weave. For more intricate motifs timah / thrima patternings are created using a group of four supplementary wefts that are inter-worked with warp elements and each other by twining and wrapping and also appear to ride on the surface of the textile. Depending on how these wefts are handled they may resemble either a vertical ‘cross-stitch’ or a horizontal ‘chain stitch’ and often look very much like embroidery. However, neither sammah / sapma nor timah / thrima patternings are embroided onto the fabric, these patternings are painstakingly woven into the textile as the weft is being laid on the loom, not after the textile is removed (from the loom).