Once in every Punjabi home. Almost lost. Now woven again.
Khes is one of the oldest hand-woven cotton textiles of the Indian subcontinent — born in Punjab, carried in dowries, exported across empires, and very nearly forgotten. Here is what it is, what it meant, and why we have given the rest of our lives to bringing it back.
Punjab’s everyday cloth, woven for centuries.
Khes is a thick, hand-spun, handwoven cotton textile from Punjab, traditionally used as a bed cover, a winter wrap, and a floor covering. Woven in checks, stripes, and intricate geometric patterns, it is built to last decades — soft against the skin, breathable in summer, warm in winter, and stronger with every wash.
The most prized Khes is double-cloth khes — chandni khes or majnu khes — where two layers of fabric are woven simultaneously on a single loom and interchanged to create a reversible, intricately patterned cloth. It is one of the most technically demanding hand-weaves in the subcontinent, and it has always been the work of master weavers.
From Mughal courts to your closet.
Khes evolved centuries ago to meet the simplest need in a Punjabi household: a strong, breathable cotton blanket that would survive everything the seasons threw at it. It became one of the great everyday cloths of the region — and during the Mughal period, an important item of export. Cotton textiles from Punjab travelled across the empire and beyond.
By the nineteenth century, Khes was so embedded in life on the Punjab plains that the British scholar Lockwood Kipling, surveying the crafts of Punjab, likened it to the ginghams and checks of England. It was, in effect, the gingham of the subcontinent — a quiet, ubiquitous, beloved cloth.
“The gingham of the subcontinent.”— Lockwood Kipling, on the Khes of Punjab
For hundreds of years, Khes was woven by women, for women.
A girl was taught to weave by an elder of the household — a mother, a grandmother, an aunt — so the tradition would not die out and she could carry it forth. As soon as a daughter was born, the women of the family began weaving and embroidering the textiles she would take with her into marriage: Khes, phulkaris, baghs.
Depending on the family’s standing, a bride might leave home with anywhere from eleven to a hundred and one of these pieces, folded into her sinduk — the wooden trunk that travelled with her to her husband’s house.
The Khes a mother wove for her daughter was not a product. It was a year of work, a wish for warmth, a record of skill, and a tether back to home.
“It was symbolically infused with life. It was hers.”
Why it almost disappeared.
From the mid-19th century, mill-made and machine-made fabric began undercutting the demand for handwoven Khes. Generation by generation, the looms in Punjabi villages went quiet. Skilled weavers — once gainfully employed and central to village life — lost their income.
The chain broke: the mothers stopped weaving, the daughters stopped learning, the looms became firewood.
By the time we started Loom & Things, the Khes was nearly invisible in the very homes that had made it for centuries. The skill survived in scattered older hands. The looms survived in memory. The cultural meaning was being forgotten in real time.
Reviving Khes is three things at once.
From scratch, on our family farm.
Every piece of handloom textile we make is made in-house, by our artisans, on our family farm in Punjab. We did not source this. We did not subcontract it. We built it.
When we started, there was no weaving centre. There was a piece of land that had been in the family for generations, a great deal of conviction, and one weaver willing to try. We set up the spinning wheels. We set up the looms. We trained, hired, and grew a team of women weavers from our village and the ones around it. We brought in master artisans to teach the older, more complex techniques.
What you see today — five women weavers, three big looms, a fully operational weaving and dyeing unit, a London store on Islington Green, customers across Italy, France, and the UK — was built one decision at a time, with no shortcuts.
Inside our weaving centre
Every piece carries all of this with it.
When you wear a Loom & Things Khes piece, you are wearing:
- A textile with centuries of history in Punjab.
- Cotton grown on independent Indian farms, including our own.
- Yarn hand-spun on a charkha by a woman in Talwandi Sabo.
- Cloth handwoven on a pit loom — no electricity, no automation.
- A pattern that may have been woven in someone’s family for generations.
- A garment finished into a shape that sits as easily in London as in Bathinda.
- A small, real contribution to a craft, a community, and a culture that very nearly slipped away.
We call our Khes pieces handwoven heirlooms for a reason. They are made to be inherited.
“Loom & Things has created a cluster of women weavers in Punjab and is investing in their training and upskilling — helping the community regain what was once a thriving craft form.”Selvedge Magazine
The loom is old. The hands are skilled. The cloth is alive again.
And every piece you wear keeps it that way.