Forget the 3D world of the film Avatar and discover your own heavenly manifestation in the real world! Interweaving modern culture with heritage, and local communities within a global bazaar, Indian Benarasi handloom silk is proudly strutting down the Parisian catwalks.
If you visit Varanasi, the cultural capital of India, you will experience the mystic hustle and bustle of pilgrims and slow-moving boat wallahs on the banks of the ochre-hued River Ganges. Yet, alongside the commotion is a vast peace of silk emporiums, a token tribute to an age old slow tradition of community weaving within the region that once clothed the Indian Maharajas and the Dalits (low caste) alike.
For 1,000 years, weavers willingly surrendered themselves in spiritual reverie to the quality-focused techniques of hand-looming within the city’s twisted alleyways, where kilometres of refined, luxurious thread would hang forth and feed the streets.
The silk, sometimes created in a co-operative partnership between two weavers, would be opulently embroidered with gorgeous motifs of myth and nature such as marigolds, swans and griffins through binary systems (perhaps the origin of computer’s today) and often enhanced with gold or silver (zari) thread.
Oscar de la Renta once commented that, ‘”Silk does for the body what diamonds do for the hand.”
However the fast pace of modern life, the adoption of mass production and the acceptance of “poor-quality, cheap machine-silk has substantially impacted the brocade craft and its unique results.
“Many looms are lying silent today and many have even been sold off. As the traditional sari has been pushed to a side of the wardrobe of the modern woman, so have these weavers been pushed to the fringe of their community.”
This lost craft has erupted into discord for the 150,000 remaining weavers, forcing them into a vulnerable life of unemployment, who often migrate to hard labour away from their skill and home.
Yet there is hope of revival through The Varanasi Weavers Project, which is re-training weavers and bringing the old craft up-to-date and making commercially viable. Moving away from the myriad spectacle of colours, the collection offers Western sophistication with classic colours of blacks and natural shades, while entwining clean-cut contemporary designs with the traditional aesthetic in order to make it more desirable.
The famous Varanasi embroidered “Zardosi” buttons crafted by village women, that has been long-applauded for its fashion finesse is also being revitalized, while the pure silk fabric has also been made lightweight, colour-fast and machine washable.
“We believe that these weavers have magic in their fingers; they are not asking for pity.”
Showcased to audiences at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris in Autumn 2008, it is hoped that the project, of which now encompasses 60 weavers working in three Dalit villages around the city, can expand its aesthetically-charming and socially vital grassroots industry.
Photos: Varanasi Weavers Project
