India&rsquos extraordinary traditions in handmade textiles, often feared to be a vanishing heritage, are ravishingly back in the spotlight with London&rsquos first major exhibition on them at the Victoria & Albert Museum. &lsquoThe Fabric of India&rsquo, meticulously put together by V&A curators Rosemary Crill and Divia Patel, showcases about 200 objects attributed to a period from the 3rd century CE to contemporary fashion. Especially noteworthy are heirloom cloths crafted for religious worship and exquisitely opulent evidence of courtly patronage textiles that shaped centuries of global trade and those that unified India in her struggle for sovereignty. There&rsquos a Talismanic red and gold shirt in starched cotton dated to about 1480 CE- 1520 CE, a striking 1630 CE floorspread from the Coromandel Coast, and a North Indian woman&rsquos gilded peshwaz from about 1800 CE. Many of the exhibits are on display for the first time. Fittingly, towering above the gallery is Tipu Sultan&rsquos enormous 18th-century chintz tent, mordant-dyed, resist-dyed and block-printed in floral motifs.
What &lsquoThe Fabric of India&rsquo exhibition
Where London&rsquos Victoria and Albert Museum
When  October 3, 2015 to January 10, 2016
For more info www.vam.ac.uk