Embroidered Shawls & Stoles, worn by Indians for ages, the Indian shawls are warmly welcomed in the world market today. Famous for it woven and embroidered designs, the Indian shawls produced mainly by Kashmiri craftsmen. Shawl is also woven in Assam, Gujarat and Rajasthan. But those woven in Kashmir are most widely worn. The warmth of the Pashmina wool shawl from Kashmir are unparalleled. The warmth and pastel shades of these shawls Jamawar, Pashmina Embroidered shawls are admired through the world.

History: Also spelled Cashmere, type of woolen shawl woven in Kashmir. It is said that the shawls were famous from Kashmir even in the times of emperor Ashok (3rd C BC) but many writers credited Sultan Zain-Ul-Abidin (1420-1470 A.D) as the initiator of Shawl industry in Kashmir. It may be the Sultan whose enlightened rule encouraged promotion of arts as an organized trade and the Pashmina or in Persian called "Pashm" that we know today is a legacy of that period.

Shawl has been worn and used as a warm protective garment by kings and queens since ancient times. However, the Mughal emperor Akbar experimented with various styles and encouraged weavers to try new motifs, which helped establish a successful shawl industry.

Though the history of shawl weaving, with which the history of woolen textiles is closely associated, is rather obscure, references to Embroidered Shawls are first found in the Ramayana and Mahabharata and the Atharvaveda. Derived from the Persian shal, which was the name for a whole range of fine woolen garments, the shawl in India was worn folded across the shoulder, and not as a girdle, as the Persians did. Even today, we sometimes see old Parsis with a shawl tied around their waist during their religious ceremonies.

Though embroidered woolen stole is worn and used as a warm protective garment all over the northern states today, Kashmir has become synonymous with stoles all over the world. There are no earlier indications but around the Mughal rule in India, Kashmir soon overtook the northwest frontier and Punjab, as the center of shawl- making. Akbar was greatly enamored by the Kashmir shawl land the way it was worn, folded in four, captured his imagination. He experimented with various ways of wearing it, and found that embroidered stoles looked good worn without folds, just thrown over the shoulder.