Dress and textiles

The coastal Telugu sareeWomen

Six yards in fine cotton for daily wear, silk for occasions, with the pallu over the left shoulder. The older rural drape took the cloth between the legs for field and canal work and survives among older women.

Worn for: Everyday and ceremonial

Panche and kanduvaMen

A white cotton dhoti worn with a shoulder cloth. It remains standard dress for temple service, for elders, and for the agricultural households that run the delta.

Worn for: Everyday, ritual, formal

Langa voniGirls and young women

A long skirt with a fitted blouse and a half-saree drawn across, worn until marriage in traditional households.

Worn for: Festivals and family occasions

Kalamkari yardageMen and women

Mordant-dyed printed cotton made up as sarees, shirts and dupattas. The modern garment trade is what keeps Pedana's print blocks in use; the temple hangings that the craft began with are a much smaller market.

Worn for: Everyday and formal

Uppada Jamdani SareesGI tagKakinada (Uppada)

Registered as a geographical indication in 2008. Jamdani is a supplementary-weft technique in which the motif is worked in by hand as the cloth is woven, thread by thread, with no shuttle carrying it across — so the pattern is part of the weave rather than embroidered onto it. Two weavers work one loom, and a saree can take months.

Mangalagiri Sarees and FabricsGI tagGuntur (Mangalagiri)

Registered as a geographical indication in 2010. A dense, plain-bodied cotton with a zari border woven by the nizam technique, famously produced with no gaps in the weave — the fabric's reputation rests on tightness rather than on ornament, and it is the cloth institutional buyers order in bulk.

Machilipatnam KalamkariGI tagKrishna (Machilipatnam and Pedana)

Registered as a geographical indication in 2007. Block-printed with hand-drawn detail, coloured with mordants and natural dyes rather than pigments, and finished by repeated river washing. It is the block-printed kalamkari; the freehand pen kalamkari of Srikalahasti is a separate craft with a separate registration and belongs to the interior, not to this coast.

Venkatagiri SareesGI tagThe southern edge of the region, historically Nellore

Registered as a geographical indication in 2009. Very fine cotton with jamdani-style motifs and a light zari border, developed under estate patronage. Venkatagiri town now falls in Tirupati district, so the weave sits exactly on this region's inland boundary.

Narasapur Crochet LaceGI tagWest Godavari (Narsapur)

Registered as a geographical indication in 2020. Hand-crocheted cotton lace introduced by missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century, worked at home by tens of thousands of women, and sold almost entirely into export furnishing markets — a craft with no domestic tradition behind it and a global customer in front of it.

Chirala and Vetapalem cottonsBapatla

Plain and checked handloom cotton woven along the coast south of the Krishna, sold as everyday cloth and as furnishing. No registration, and a cluster under heavy pressure from powerloom competition.