Anokhi Museum

Faith Singh founded Anokhi in 1970, when Rajasthan’s centuries-old hand block printing tradition was losing ground to synthetic dyes and factory speed. She traveled to villages across the state, buying up textiles from artisans who were abandoning the craft, and turned them into contemporary clothing that sold globally while keeping the artisans employed. Thirty years later, in 1999, she opened the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing inside a restored haveli in Jaipur, a 16th-century mansion with latticed windows and stone arches. Inside: carved wooden blocks used for generations, natural dyes extracted from indigo, turmeric, and pomegranate, and live demonstrations by master printers who press each block by hand. The museum holds over 1,000 textiles in its collection, some dating back 400 years. One woman. One decision to buy instead of mourn. One craft that refused to disappear.