Luxury Pret |
How to read an embroidered hem
Thread count, stitch direction, and where the karigar started — what the border of a piece tells you about how it was made.
A hem is the most honest part of a garment. It is the last thing worked, it carries the most weight, and it is where a shortcut shows first.
Start with stitch direction. Hand-worked borders change angle where the karigar repositioned the frame — small breaks in the rhythm, usually every few inches. A machine border does not do this; its repeat is exact, and exactness at that scale is the tell.
Then look at the reverse. On hand work the underside is dense and slightly irregular, with thread ends worked back in rather than cut flush. A clean, uniform reverse means the pattern was laid down by a machine head.
None of this makes machine work bad. It makes it different, and worth paying a different price for.
