Lucknow Chikan Emporium

Lucknow Chikan Emporium is right at No. 6 on Khun Khun Ji Road. If you are trying to find us, we are sitting directly across from the Munnu Lal Dharamshalla, which most people in this area know well. The street is always packed with rickshaws and people, so it gets pretty noisy from morning till night. Our shop has been in this exact spot for a very long time. When you walk in, it smells like old wood and a bit of laundry. We have stacks of chikan work piled up on almost every surface, and sometimes it's hard to find a place to sit. The walls are covered in boxes that we've been meaning to organize for months. We spend most of our time showing people the different thread patterns and explaining how the stitching is done by hand. It's a slow way to work and we don't see any reason to rush it. Sometimes we just sit on the floor to sort through the new bundles that come in from the villages. The lighting inside is a bit dim, but we have lived here so long we could find anything in the dark. My family has been in this trade for generations, so it’s just what we do. We don't have a website or anything modern like that. We just open the shop in the morning and stay until it's time to go home. It is a simple life on Khun Khun Ji Road, surrounded by fabric and the daily bustle.