Lucknow · Est. 2026
by QAS
Shadow work for the streets. Two-hundred-year-old hand embroidery, cut for right now.
آبرو — لکھنؤ کا سایہ کام
The Idea
Chikankari is the embroidery the world calls shadow work — thread stitched on the reverse of the cloth so the pattern glows through the front. It dressed the courts of Awadh, then spent fifty years filed under “ethnic” — a whole craft shrunk to one aisle, and the women who wear it given one occasion to wear it on.
Aabru takes the same hands, same stitches, same Lucknow — and puts them on oversized tees, overshirts, hoodies and pump covers. Not fusion. Not costume. The craft, worn the way we actually dress.
Nine in ten chikankari karigars are women. Every piece is stitched in Lucknow and named on the tag. No machine embroidery. Ever.
Three Lines
LINE — I
دربار
The luxury line. Full hand-chikan co-ords, overshirts and kurtas on fine cotton and mul — pieces that take a karigar weeks, not hours. Wear the set, or split it and wear the halves for a decade. Made to order.
Co-ords · Overshirts · Kurtas
₹8,000 — ₹25,000
LINE — II
گلی
Everyday heavyweight. Oversized tees, cropped tees, hoodies and cargos with hand-stitched chikan panels — jaali on a chest pocket, murri down a sleeve. Loud craft, quiet flex.
Crops · Tees · Cargos
₹2,500 — ₹6,000
LINE — III
پسینہ
The gym line — built on a simple truth: a pump cover is just an oversized cotton tee, and cotton is chikan's home ground. Breathable 240 GSM, boxy cut, shadow work across the back. Cut the same for everyone on the floor.
Pump covers · Gym tees · Towels
₹1,800 — ₹4,000
How It’s Worn
Hand embroidery got treated like an event. It isn’t. One wardrobe, one week — the same four pieces, worn the way they actually get worn.
Monday
Campus
with loose jeans and beaten-in sneakers
Line — Street
Thursday
Desk
split — the kurta alone over tailored trousers
Line — Court
Saturday
Night
worn open, sleeves pushed back
Line — Court
Sunday
Floor
over track pants, hair up
Line — Sweat
Drop 01 Lookbook
Darbar Overshirt
Court line
Bakhiya
Rumi Crop Tee
Street line
Jaali
Shadow Hoodie
Street line
Murri
Imambara Co-ord
Court line
Phanda
Pasina Pump Cover
Sweat line
Bakhiya
Gali Cargo Set
Street line
Jaali
In Stock
The drop is the future. This is the room right now — cotton kurtas you can wear on a Tuesday, and hand-work a karigar spent weeks on.
The Craft
Chikankari has over thirty named stitches. We build around four — each visible on the garment, each named on the label, each done by hand.
بخیہ
The shadow stitch, and the reason this house exists. Worked on the reverse so the motif glows through the fabric — embroidery you sense before you see.
مری
Tiny rice-grain knots that build texture. The hardest stitch to master — the mark of a senior karigar's hand.
پھندا
Small round millet-seed knots, dotted like grain across a panel. Quiet from far, dense up close.
جالی
Thread pulled — never cut — to open a lattice in the cloth itself. The same geometry as a Lucknow window screen.
“The cloth remembers the hand.”
Every Aabru tag carries the name of the karigar who stitched it — because the craft has a face, and it lives in Lucknow.
Karigar-Signed
پہلا قدم
Forty pieces. Three lines. One city. Waitlist gets first access, twenty-four hours early.
No spam. Sirf drops.
