A buyer holding a finished kurta cannot see how the embroidery was made, and on the surface machine embroidery imitates handwork closely. Craftmark exists to settle that doubt: AIACA, the All India Artisans and Craftworkers Welfare Association, licenses the mark producer by producer, only after an audit. Shwet Heritage holds license 278P060, granted for the craft process Chikankari Embroidery after that audit of how our work is made.

How the audit works

For Chikankari, AIACA audits the production process from block printing through embroidery to washing before licensing a producer to carry the mark. The audit verifies that motifs are embroidered by hand, that the stitch vocabulary is authentic to the craft, and that the women who embroider are paid fairly and directly. Craftmark’s standards also require good working conditions and prohibit child labour.

Fair payment at this house carries a number. A kurta that sells for thousands of rupees historically paid its embroiderer twenty to fifty. Our model pays ₹500 for the same work, publishes that number, and puts the artisan’s name on the piece she made. More than 1,000 artisan women across self-help groups in and around Lucknow embroider for the house.

Certification is renewed on inspection, not purchased. Our license carries the term 14 February 2025 to 13 February 2027, and renewal means passing that audit again.

What the seal does not claim

Craftmark certifies the enterprise and its process, not each garment one by one. AIACA audits how our Chikankari is made, so the seal grades no individual piece. A quality check of our own runs in Lucknow instead, and a piece that fails it after you pay is cancelled with the reason told and refunded in full, never substituted without asking.

Lucknow Chikan Craft was registered as a Geographical Indication in 2008, and the registration belongs to the craft and its region. We hold a Craftmark license. We hold no GI.

Telling hand from machine

A seal is only worth as much as your ability to check it, so here is what the audit is looking for and what you can look for yourself. Turn a piece over. Hand embroidery has a reverse that is a working surface, with knots, short thread carries and a texture that differs from the face. Machine embroidery has a flat, regular reverse and usually a backing left behind the motif.

Then look at repetition. A machine repeats a motif identically because it is running one file, so twenty flowers are the same flower twenty times. On hand work the same motif drifts by a fraction across a panel, the knots vary in size, and the density changes where one woman handed the piece to the next. Regularity is the tell, not irregularity.

Chikankari also gives a specific reading. Bakhiya, the shadow work, is a herringbone worked on the back so the front carries only the glow of thread through the cloth, which no surface machine stitch reproduces. A murri is a grain and a phanda is a knot, each tied individually. Where a piece names those stitches, the reverse should show the work that made them.

How to verify us

Every Shwet Heritage garment carries its Craftmark certification on its product page, and, where you leave an email at checkout, on the order confirmation we send you. To verify, AIACA lists Shwet on its public member register for the craft process Chikankari Embroidery. Our license number, 278P060, and its term are on the certificate we publish.

The document AIACA issued is shown on this page whole, legible down to the contact line in its footer, so the claim can be read at its source.

Verification does not stop at the seal. Each product page names the stitches on that piece and the woman who embroidered it, and her own page lists everything that carries her hand, so a claim made at the level of the house can be checked at the level of the garment.