Our Story

Mr. H.K. Uttam, Founder

Handcrafted in Delhi since 1963

Vichitra means unique.

In 1963, Mr. H.K. Uttam opened a shop in South Extension, New Delhi, with an idea that few in India were pursuing: that a saree could be light, that it could move, and that it could carry a printed garden.

Sixty-three years later, the house is still in the family, and still printing by hand.

1963 · South Extension

The first Vichitra store, South Extension, New Delhi

Vichitra opened its first store in South Extension with a handful of artisans, a set of hand-cut screens, and a founder with an unusual eye for colour. At a time when the market offered stiffness and heavy embellishment, Vichitra offered fluidity.

What He Learned in Japan

H.K. Uttam in Japan, 1966

He travelled to Japan to study screen printing at its source. He came back and rebuilt how Vichitra printed: finer screens, cleaner registration, a discipline of colour that the studio still works to today.

It is the reason a Vichitra print holds its detail on a fabric as fine as chiffon.

1972 · A Saree for the Prime Minister

H.K. Uttam and family presents a one-of-a-kind saree to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi

Months after India's victory in the war of 1971, Vichitra printed a saree unlike any before it: the newspaper front pages of the victory, laid across pure silk.

It was made once, and it was presented to the Prime Minister.

The Vichitra Woman

Rajmata Gayatri Devi for Vichitra

Leela Naidu for Vichitra

Waheeda Rehman for Vichitra

Rajmata Gayatri Devi. Leela Naidu. Waheeda Rehman.

Across six decades they stood in front of our camera, in sarees printed on our own tables. We have never needed to describe the woman who wears Vichitra. She has always shown us herself.

2009 · Saket

After forty-six years in South Extension, Vichitra moved to MGF Metropolitan Mall in Saket. It remains our only store, and the home of every collection.

Today · Three Generations

The founder's daughter has shaped Vichitra's design for the better part of three decades, and still does. His grandson leads the house today.

The screens have not changed. Neither has the silk.

2026 · Ink & Blossom

Hand screen printing sits at the heart of this house and always will. But the archive it has produced has never belonged to a single method.

Ink & Blossom is our first digitally printed collection: the same studio, the same pure silk, the same standard. Only the way the colour meets the cloth has changed.