A few years ago, she pioneered the revival of bright, mesmerising patterns that once adorned many household items both here and beyond. Trained in fashion design as well as embroidery, Madina has recently launched her own line of unique designer clothing and bespoke soft furnishings that are unmistakeably Oriental yet tantalisingly modern.
To appreciate what makes Madina’s work so special, let’s take a walk through the shifting sands of the legendary Silk Road to discover the ancient origins of the embroidery that so inspires her.
Suzani – large embroidered wall-hangings – have been described as ‘the queen of needlework,’ and it’s a term they well deserve. Fashioned in bright, bold colours emblazoned with stylised rosettes representing the sun, moon, stars and planets, handmade suzani were once the centrepiece of a young woman’s dowry. A true feminine secret, the magic of this craft was handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter as young women gathered round to embroider decorative hangings and bedspreads together. As smiles and needles flashed, a corner of fabric was always left blank for the next generation to complete, ensuring this beautiful tradition would endure for many centuries to come.
Even so, this skill was gradually covered by the mists of time, and was almost completely forgotten by the 1980s. Each cradle of Uzbek embroidery developed its own local artistic traits; the hallmark of Tashkent and nearby Pskent palyak for instance is the densely-stitched ground fabric. This mesh of fine stiches produces a plush background (usually in a rich burgundy-red) which sets off the lunar and astral medallions creating an impressively enchanting effect. But of course, it’s an extremely exacting and time-consuming technique – it could take seven or eight months to complete a single large wall-hanging.
And that is one reason why, when the art of suzani was being revived in the 2000’s most needlewomen shied away from the Tashkent school and focused their efforts on other traditions instead. Not so Madina Kasimbaeva!
A native of Tashkent herself, Madina quickly mastered all the secrets of embroidery even though she is not from a family of needlewomen. A graduate of the Lyceum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Madina initially specialised in gold-thread embroidery, before going on to join the Libos Aesthetic Centre at the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan to study fashion design.
But fate had something else in store for the young needlewoman. To cut a long story short, she fell in love with samples of antique suzani and was utterly enthralled as she watched other virtuoso needlewomen at work on modern pieces. Gold-thread embroidery is quite different from the technique used in Tashkent palyak, but young Madina was not to be deterred. She began studying all aspects of national embroidery from books, gleaning whatever she could about its history, techniques, colours used, symbology and so on. Safe to say, she has almost single-handedly restored the school of Tashkent palyak, infusing the ‘starry skies’ with her own modern dimension.
A true perfectionist, Madina is meticulous about the proportions of each detail in her decorative designs as well as the harmony of her colour combinations. And the stitching must be impeccably neat, too. But Madina is also a creative genius, a gifted artist steeped in the myths and symbols that have always inspired her nation’s culture, running through its rich tapestry like her own shimmering silken threads. Her inexhaustible imagination, unerring taste and precise craftsmanship all find expression in her striking embroidery.
Her choice of materials is both ancient and modern, too. If you are looking for a natural product for your home furnishings, then Madina’s work is for you. She dyes the high-quality silk threads herself using almost exclusively natural ingredients and age-old recipes she has experimented with to unlock the secrets to those bright colours. She selects the ground fabrics herself, too, going for handmade cotton or silk cloths such as adras, satin, or calico.
While firmly rooted in the time-honoured tradition of her grandmothers, Madina is not bound by it, gracefully introducing subtle changes like altering the colouring of some patterns perhaps, or enhancing warmer or colder tones to add subtle compositional or emotional nuances.
For almost twenty years now, Madina Kasimbaeva has been not only practising but also teaching embroidery, gladly sharing her skills and experience with her many students, or shogirds, who will one day become virtuoso needlewomen in their own right.
Today, Ms. Kasimbaeva is one of Uzbekistan’s leading embroidery experts. Madina sees herself not just as a traditional master craftswoman but also as a master and designer of innovations, seeking to adapt her craft to the modern market and widen the range of practical uses for embroidered items. She is currently developing a range of unique pieces that are unmistakeably, intriguing Oriental yet tantalisingly modern. Her repertoire includes intricately embroidered fashion items such as clothes, footwear and bags, as well as interior décor essentials such as cushion covers, tablecloths, upholstery, curtains etc. Traditional embroidered chapan (coats) are the signature of her clothing collection. A regular at the prestigious Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, her pieces are very popular not only at home but also with private collectors abroad, in particular in USA, England, India, Germany, CIS, Australia, Turkey, and France, among others.
