How to tell a handloom from a power-loom, with the saree in your hands
Nobody needs a certificate to answer this. The evidence is in the selvedge, the reverse, and the way the border meets the body — and most of it can be read in under a minute.
By The Aishvika desk · 2026-08-09
The word handloom does a great deal of work in Indian retail, and almost none of it is regulated at the point of sale. A saree can be described as handloom because the yarn was hand-spun, because the border was hand-finished, or because nobody in the chain thought to check. The price difference between a handloom and a competent power-loom copy of the same design is often four figures. So it is worth knowing how to tell.
None of what follows requires a laboratory. It requires about a minute, decent light, and a willingness to turn the cloth over — which is, in our experience, the single thing most buyers never do.
A handloom is not more perfect than a power-loom. It is less perfect, and that is exactly how you recognise it.
The six checks
We run these in order, because the first two settle most cases before the others are needed.
1 · Look at the selvedge
A handloom selvedge is slightly uneven — it has to be, because the weft is returned by hand. A power-loom edge is mechanically regular for metres at a stretch.
2 · Turn it over
On a handloom the reverse is legible: you can follow the path of the extra weft, and where floats have been cut they are cut by hand, at slightly varying lengths.
3 · Find the join
Where a border is woven separately and interlocked, there is a visible line of interlock. A printed or attached border has no structural join at all.
4 · Hold it to the light
Count the picks in a centimetre against a window. Handloom counts drift; power-loom counts hold to within a thread over a long run.
5 · Look for the repeat
A power-loom repeats its motif to the millimetre. Handloom motifs shift a little as the weaver's rhythm changes across a day.
6 · Ask what it weighs
This is the one nobody can fake in a photograph. If a seller cannot tell you the weight of a saree, they have not weighed it, and probably have not handled it either.
What a GI tag does not tell you
A Geographical Indication registration protects a name in connection with a place and a defined production standard, administered through registered users. It is a claim about origin and process — not a per-piece quality certificate, and not a substitute for loom type. A saree can be entirely handwoven without carrying one. That is why we state certification status separately from loom type on every product page, rather than letting one imply the other.