Prints of India (preview)
Before it was a print, it was a pair of hands.
Somewhere in India, right now, a person is pressing a carved wooden block into cloth. Another is tying a knot so small you could miss it. Another is drawing a pattern on a doorstep with a pinch of rice flour, knowing the feet of the day will rub it away.
None of them is doing it for the first time. They are doing what their mothers and fathers did, and what theirs did before them, in the same way, for centuries.
We started SĀNTI because we couldn’t stop looking at these patterns. And we couldn’t stop wondering: why should something this beautiful stay behind glass, or in a trunk, or in a story only a few people know?
So we gathered twelve of them. Here is where each one comes from, and why we couldn’t leave it behind.
Ajrakh · Kalamkari · Bandhani · Bagh · Dabu · Buta · Kolam · Mughal Mosaic · Madras Check · Pichwai · Ikat · Kerala Mural
Ajrakh
Kutch, Gujarat · Barmer, Rajasthan
About the Print
Some patterns feel like standing under a night sky, and Ajrakh is one of them. Deep indigo, the colour of the hour just after sunset, held against a red as warm as earth after rain. Between them, stars and flowers laid out as if by someone who loved order. In India, Ajrakh speaks of balance: sky and earth, dark and light, effort and calm. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling, a quiet, steady kind of beauty that never needs to be loud.
Origin Story
Imagine cloth that is never in a hurry. It is printed, covered in mud, dyed, washed, left in the sun, and then the whole thing begins again. Days pass before the pattern is allowed to show itself.
Centuries ago, Khatri families carried this craft from Sindh to Kutch and Barmer, bringing the knowledge in their hands. They print both sides of the cloth, because the maker wants the back to be as beautiful as the front, even if no one ever sees it. There is a whole way of living in that: do the work no one will see, and do it with love.
We couldn’t stop looking at it, and we wanted to carry that feeling into everyday life. This SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not hand block-printed, a small fragment of that patience for you to wear.
Craft: resist block printing · Region: Kutch and Barmer · Meaning: balance, patience and the harmony of earth and sky
Kalamkari
Andhra Pradesh
About the Print
Kalamkari is cloth that tells you a story before you have even started reading it. Trees heavy with leaves, birds on the branches, vines that curl like handwriting, drawn in earthy reds, indigos and soft greens. In Indian art, the tree of life stands for growth, shelter and the bond between the earth and everything that lives on it. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling: the calm of sitting under a big, old tree with a good story.
Origin Story
Kalamkari means “pen work”: kalam, the pen, and kari, the craft. In Andhra Pradesh, artists draw with a bamboo pen, line by line, onto cotton, telling stories of flowers, trees and old epics. In some towns the same stories are pressed from carved blocks instead. The colours come from roots, bark and leaves.
It is cloth made to be read slowly, the way you read a letter from someone you love. You can feel the patience in every curl of every vine, the steady breath of a hand that is in no hurry to finish.
Inspired by this tradition, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not hand-painted, a fragment of those stories to carry through your day.
Craft: hand painting and block printing · Region: Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam · Meaning: stories, growth and the tree of life
Bandhani
Gujarat · Rajasthan
About the Print
Dots, thousands of them, small as grains of rice, gathered into flowers, waves and rows. Bandhani is the pattern of celebration. In Gujarat and Rajasthan it is worn at weddings and festivals, on the day a child is born or a daughter leaves home. Its warm reds, yellows and pinks stand for joy, love and good fortune. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling: the warmth of a whole family gathered in one room.
Origin Story
The word comes from bandh, to tie. Every tiny dot is a knot, tied by hand around a pinch of cloth, thousands of them, one after another, before the dye ever arrives. Then the knots are opened, and the pattern appears exactly where the colour was held back: a constellation of small circles, each one slightly different from the last.
This is the cloth of mothers handing a precious piece down to their daughters. When you see Bandhani, you are seeing a very long evening of someone’s care.
Inspired by that tradition, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not hand-tied, made to carry a little of that celebration into ordinary days.
Craft: tie-dye resist · Region: Gujarat and Rajasthan · Meaning: celebration, love and heritage passed down
Bagh
Bagh, Madhya Pradesh
About the Print
Red and black on soft cream: peacocks, flowers and vines drawn in bold, confident lines. Bagh feels like a garden remembered, one you walked through as a child. In Indian art, the peacock and the flower stand for grace and prosperity. This SĀNTI print carries both: the pride of the peacock and the gentleness of the bloom.
Origin Story
On the banks of a river, printers press carved wooden blocks into red and black, one impression at a time. Then the cloth is washed in the river, whose water is said to make the colours glow.
You can almost hear it: the knock of wood on cloth, the rhythm of hands, the sound of water. A print with a heartbeat, made by people who worked alongside the river, not against it.
Inspired by Bagh, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not hand block-printed, a small piece of that rhythm for you to wear.
Craft: hand block printing · Region: Bagh, Madhya Pradesh · Meaning: grace, prosperity and the beauty of nature
Dabu
Bagru and Akola, Rajasthan
About the Print
Soft, uneven, a little smudged in the most beautiful way. Dabu doesn’t pretend to be perfect. Indigo blues, earthy browns, and patterns that look as if the earth itself pressed them into the cloth. In its quiet way, Dabu stands for humility, for the beauty of what is imperfect, and for a close bond with the land. This SĀNTI print carries that gentleness.
Origin Story
Dabu begins with mud. A paste is pressed onto the cloth with wooden blocks, and wherever it sits, the indigo can never reach. Wash it away and the pattern appears in soft, uneven lines, no two quite alike.
It is a print made of what was held back. There is something quietly true about that: that some of the most beautiful things are what we protect.
Inspired by Dabu, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not mud-resist printed by hand, made to carry that calm into everyday life.
Craft: mud-resist block printing · Region: Bagru and Akola · Meaning: indigo, earth and quiet strength
Buta
Persia · Kashmir · India
About the Print
A small, curved shape: a teardrop, a flower, a seed, a flame. The buta means whatever you need it to mean. It is one of the oldest and most loved motifs in India, standing for beauty, growth and the hope that something good will keep going, from one generation to the next. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling: a quiet wish, folded into a pattern.
Origin Story
The buta travelled. It began in Persian courts, moved to Kashmiri shawls, and found its way onto the printed cloth of Rajasthan and Gujarat. You may know it as paisley. In India it is older and more loved than that word can hold.
It is the motif a family keeps, tucked into a shawl, a bedcover, a wedding cloth, because it means that life continues. Every time it is drawn again, it is a small act of faith in tomorrow.
Inspired by the buta, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, made to carry that hope into your everyday life.
Craft: block printing and weaving · Meaning: beauty, growth and continuity
Kolam
Tamil Nadu · South India
About the Print
A line that loops and returns, never breaking, always finding its way back to the dots. Kolam is the pattern of welcome. In Tamil Nadu it stands for prosperity, hospitality and care: opening the door, and the heart, to whoever walks in. This SĀNTI print carries the soft, orderly quiet of a doorstep at dawn.
Origin Story
At dawn, before the day begins, a kolam is drawn at the doorstep in rice flour: dots first, then looping lines. It welcomes whoever walks in. It feeds the ants and the birds. By evening it is gone, and tomorrow it will be drawn again.
Nobody keeps it. Nobody needs to. It is a kindness that renews itself every morning, passed from grandmothers to mothers to daughters, remembered in the hands more than on paper.
Inspired by Kolam, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not a hand-drawn kolam, made to carry that welcome with you wherever you go.
Craft: floor drawing in rice flour · Region: Tamil Nadu · Meaning: welcome, prosperity and care
Mughal Mosaic
North India
About the Print
Flowers held inside geometry, balanced so perfectly that your eyes finally rest. Mughal Mosaic is the stillness of a garden courtyard at noon. It stands for order, harmony and the paradise garden the Mughal courts loved to imagine. This SĀNTI print carries that stillness, for the days that feel too loud.
Origin Story
In the Mughal courts, craftsmen set stone, tile and carved screens into patterns of perfect balance, where Persian geometry meets Indian flowers. Stand in front of one in Agra or Delhi and the whole room goes quiet.
Nothing in these patterns is rushed. Every petal sits exactly where it should, as if the wall itself were breathing slowly. It asks you to stop, and to look.
Inspired by those patterns, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, a small piece of that quiet for your everyday wardrobe.
Craft: tilework, carved screens and inlay · Meaning: balance, symmetry and the garden
Madras Check
Chennai, Tamil Nadu
About the Print
A check that feels like home. Warm reds, soft greens and faded blues crossing and re-crossing, like the memory of a favourite shirt on a long summer afternoon. Madras Check stands for comfort, ease and the colours of everyday life in a warm place. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling: lived-in, familiar, kind.
Origin Story
Woven on looms in Madras, now Chennai, in cotton light enough for the heat. The colours were traditionally made to bleed softly in the wash, so the cloth changes with you, softer and more yours with every wear.
It travelled the world, and it still feels like home. Some patterns are admired from far away. This one is simply worn, and loved, and handed down.
Inspired by Madras Check, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not handwoven, made for the easy days.
Craft: handloom cotton check · Meaning: colour, comfort and home
Pichwai
Nathdwara, Rajasthan
About the Print
A lotus opening against a deep red, quiet and devotional. In Indian culture, the lotus rises from the water without carrying the mud: it stands for purity, calm and devotion. Pichwai is that feeling in cloth, a held breath, folded hands, peace. This SĀNTI print carries a small moment of stillness, to wear every day.
Origin Story
“Pichwai” means “that which hangs at the back”: enormous cloths, painted by hand over days and hung behind Shrinathji in the temple at Nathdwara, changed with the seasons. Each one is made for devotion, with a patience that is itself a kind of prayer.
The lotus is one of its best-loved motifs. Painted on cloth, it is a reminder that you, too, can rise untouched by whatever you pass through.
Inspired by Pichwai, this SĀNTI piece is a modern, printed interpretation, not hand-painted, a fragment of that calm to carry into the day.
Craft: hand painting · Meaning: the lotus: purity, calm and devotion
Ikat
Telangana · Andhra Pradesh · Odisha
About the Print
Diamonds and flowing shapes with soft, feathered edges, a pattern that seems to be quietly breathing. In India, a pattern can be a language of its own, and Ikat speaks of patience, rhythm and memory. The slightly blurred edge is not a flaw. It is the signature of threads that were dyed before they were ever woven, and found each other on the loom. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling in deep indigo, ocean blue, teal and olive.
Origin Story
Before the cloth, there is a design that lives only in the threads. Hands tie sections of yarn, dye them, then tie again, imagining a pattern no one can see yet. Only when the threads meet on the loom does it appear, edges trembling a little, the way handwriting does.
In Pochampally it became a rhythm of bold geometry. In Odisha, weavers shaped flowing forms drawn from the world around them. Different hands, different colours, the same quiet patience, passed from one generation to the next.
Ours is not a copy of any one cloth. It is a modern, printed interpretation, a tribute to pattern, and to everyone who ever tied a thread and trusted it to become something beautiful.
Craft: tied and dyed yarn, woven · Region: Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha · Meaning: patience, rhythm and memory
Kerala Mural
Kerala · South India
About the Print
This artwork is inspired by the temple and palace mural traditions of Kerala and South India, which celebrated nature, mythology, lotus ponds, peacocks and divine symbolism. The peacock, the mor, stands for grace, beauty, good fortune, renewal and divine protection. The flowing lines, warm orange tones and ornamental detail echo the storytelling that once covered temple walls and palace interiors. This SĀNTI print carries that feeling, a little pride and a lot of grace.
Origin Story
Centuries before there were screens and prints, there were walls. And on the walls of Kerala’s temples and palaces, painters told stories. With natural pigments, mineral colours and hand-made brushes, they filled the space with deep reds, golds, greens and blues, held together by bold, flowing lines.
Nothing was only decoration. Every peacock, lotus pond, vine and cloud carried a story, a blessing, a wish for prosperity. They were painted slowly, by people who knew the walls would outlive them.
We borrowed their colours and their calm, and made a quiet panel you can wear. It is a modern, DTG-printed interpretation, not a copy of the walls, but a small fragment of them, carried into your day.
Craft: hand-painted temple and palace murals · Region: Kerala and South India · Meaning: grace, good fortune, renewal and divine protection
What we promise you
We are not the artisans, and we won’t pretend to be. Every SĀNTI print is inspired by these traditions, reimagined in a calm, modern shape, and printed to order on things you use every day: tees, mugs, journals, totes, caps and phone cases.
But we promise this much: every print starts with its story. We tell you where it comes from, what it means, and whose patience it carries, so that when you wear it, you are not wearing a costume. You are carrying a small piece of a very long conversation.
Read how SĀNTI began → Our Story
SĀNTI — Wear the Story.