Nasreen and Hasan Askari open Karachi museum with her 1,000-piece centuries-old collection from trade crossroads. As a young medical student in 1970s Pakistan, Nasreen Askari had an encounter that would shape her for ever. After asking the mother of a sick boy routine questions about his family history, the woman looked outraged. Marching Askari outside, she took off her colourful shawl and laid it on her lap. “Most of the answers to your pointless questions are here,” she said, pointing to intricate embroidery that symbolised everything, from the woman’s community, to her marriage status and her number of children.
![[A coverlet from Sindh.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5ca677dcf7b3a13e577efe5c796b6c808abd3595/0_76_3750_3750/master/3750.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“I know my son is very ill and he will die,” the woman told Askari. “When he is gone, I will go home and unravel one of these black flowers here on my shawl.”. This was Askari’s first brush with the ornate fabrics of Pakistan’s south-east province of Sindh and the stories, biographies and histories woven within them. It awoke her curiosity, which grew into a lifelong passion for collecting unique textiles crafted by the diverse communities of Sindh and her attempt to understand the narratives documented in the cloth.
![[a colourful red skirt]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6d893a3ac6e60832d8f5cc6f12718bee5837d9c5/187_0_5213_3129/master/5213.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Fifty years later, Askari’s almost 1,000-piece collection – the largest of its kind – has formed the basis of Pakistan’s first dedicated textile museum, which she and her husband, Hasan, a former British Museum trustee, opened in Karachi in December.
