Listen to a verbal description of the object intended for someone with low to no vision, or anyone looking for a closer look at the object.

Transcript:

This skirt was made in Gujurat, India in the 19th century and measures just under four feet tall by three feet wide. The garment is made of silk, satin weave with warp ikat, cotton, and embroidery. This garment is a skirt “Mashru.” Mashru is spelled M A S H R U. Mashru means “this is allowed”, and was woven for Muslim communities who had a rule that silk should not touch a person’s skin. Weavers came up with a mixture that put cotton on the inside, while showing a rich silk in a shiny satin weave on the exterior. One could imagine a person, likely a woman, wearing this red skirt around mid-waist and having it fall to their shin or mid-calf. The skirt has 12 pleats all the way around it, which gives it added body, volume, and movement. It has a thin 1 ½ inch decorative floral embroidered belt line around the waist with a golden ribbon tassel tie on the side. There is a thick 6 inch embroidered border at its bottom, also depicting floral designs. The main part of the skirt is made of a strong but lightweight fabric with a soft shine. This fabric is the color of a faded wine red that looks more red-orange or vibrant magenta depending on how the light hits it. From afar it looks shiny with a smooth and slightly crinkled texture. Up close the weave of the fibers and texture of raw silk comes through. Across this red fabric, there are 13 thin, evenly spaced horizontal stripes that are outlined in a light gold thread. Each of these stripes is split in half horizontally by another gold line. The top half of the stripe is red and the bottom half is a dark indigo blue. There are repeated gold and cream-colored streaked arrowheads within the red and blue sections of each stripe that signify the ikat technique. Also known as daggers or khanjari, the arrows in this chevron pattern all face in the same direction, to your left. They look as though they were painted on, then streaked to the left with a dry brush. These light arrowheads and golden outline make the thin stripes glow and stand out on the red skirt and encourage the eye to jump and dance around its dynamic surface. The six inch border at the bottom of the skirt draws the viewer’s attention in a different way. This section is a caramel color and is heavily embroidered with floral patterns. The top of the border shows lines of red tulips, loops and abstract roses, and gold and white daisies. Large sunflower-like shapes and a dark blue leafy plant alternate in a pattern that takes up most of this section. Vines, leaves, and doves curve and weave gracefully between these shapes and a thin line of daisies lines the bottom.