Zar (Gold) + Dozi (Embroidery)
Our Story
An ancient art of gold-thread embroidery, still stitched by hand into every piece we make.
Our Philosophy
Notprinted.
Notpainted.
Coiledbyhand,threadbythread.
Every Tina Glitter piece carries genuine zardozi work — real metal wire coiled and stitched, sequins and beads set one at a time. What looks ornamental is, underneath, centuries of technique.
Kalabattun
Metal wire, coiled by hand
The Craft
Zardozimeans
goldembroidery.
The word comes straight from Persian — zar for gold, dozi for embroidery. What began in the royal courts of ancient Persia travelled the Silk Road into the Indian subcontinent, where texts like the Rig Veda already spoke of hiranya, gold-woven cloth, long before zardozi arrived.
Real metal wire — kalabattun — is coiled by hand and stitched, length by length, onto velvet and silk stretched taut across a wooden frame called the adda. It is slow work, done the same way it has been done for generations.
— Stitch by stitch, since before living memory.
A Journey
The Golden Thread
Where It Began
Zar (gold) and dozi (embroidery) — the art of metallic-thread embroidery was born in the royal courts of ancient Persia, a wearable symbol of luxury from its very first stitch.
A Craft in Motion
The technique travelled with merchants and migrating artisans into Central Asia and onward into the Indian subcontinent — where texts like the Rig Veda already described hiranya, early gold-woven fabric.
The Mughal Zenith
Under Emperor Akbar and his successors, zardozi grew from a garment embellishment into an imperial aesthetic — woven with real gold and silver wire into royal robes, court tents, and wall hangings.
Decline and Migration
The fall of the Mughal treasuries and the rise of cheap, machine-made metallic thread pushed master artisans out of the royal courts and into commercial hubs, adapting the craft to survive.
A Living Tradition
Polished copper and metal alloys have largely replaced pure gold and silver, but the collaborative adda frame and generations-old hand-stitching remain unchanged — still practiced, stitch by stitch, in artisan hubs across India.
What We Stand For
Our Principles
Real Metal Thread
No foil, no print. Every motif is built from genuine metal wire and thread, coiled and stitched by hand onto velvet and silk.
The Adda Frame
Master karigars work together around a single frame — tracing, stitching, and finishing a piece as one, the way it has always been done.
Fair-Trade Artisans
We work with artisan families directly, so the hands behind every stitch are supported, not priced out by mass production.
A Craft Worth Protecting
Every piece helps keep an intangible skill alive — passed stitch by stitch to the next generation, instead of lost to cheap machine replication.
Own the Craft
Carry the Craft Forward
Every zardozi piece in our collection is hand-embroidered, thread by thread, the same way this craft has been practiced for centuries. Explore the collection and find the one that's yours.
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