Stories woven in cloth in Pakistan’s first textile museum Nasreen and Hasan Askari open Karachi museum with her 1,000-piece centuries-old collection from trade crossroads.
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.
As a young medical student in 1970s Pakistan, Nasreen Askari had an encounter that would shape her for ever.
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.
“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.
