kanchisilkwholesale
Banaras Saree
www.kanchipuramsilkwholesale.com/
Banarsi saris are khaandani. I remember my otherwise indulgent grandmother admonishing me for the first time when I slipped and tore her red-and-silver banarsi, a relic of her wedding days from the 50s. Banarsis are not meant to be worn by eight-year-olds. Made only for royalty during the Mughal period, banarsi silk was once a novelty, discussed at length with the couturier, made from imported silk from China, and designed by Noor Jehan herself. It involved an intimate relationship with one’s couturier, from thread to garment. Not so now, as brocading or banarsi techniques have inspired pencil pouches, bags, wallets, stoles, artificial cloth garments, even cheap-ish kitsch in tourist towns, with elephant insignia for foreign tourists.
Banarsi brocade is a fabric whose history runs parallel to socio-cultural transitions in this country. These transitions are reflected in terms of designs and fabrics. The brocade travelled to adorn the turbans of Maratha kings as well as the girdles of the Kodava community of Coorg, Karnataka.
Brocading, or silk weaving, didn’t begin in Benaras until the 17th century.
Banaras Saree
www.kanchipuramsilkwholesale.com/
Banarsi saris are khaandani. I remember my otherwise indulgent grandmother admonishing me for the first time when I slipped and tore her red-and-silver banarsi, a relic of her wedding days from the 50s. Banarsis are not meant to be worn by eight-year-olds. Made only for royalty during the Mughal period, banarsi silk was once a novelty, discussed at length with the couturier, made from imported silk from China, and designed by Noor Jehan herself. It involved an intimate relationship with one’s couturier, from thread to garment. Not so now, as brocading or banarsi techniques have inspired pencil pouches, bags, wallets, stoles, artificial cloth garments, even cheap-ish kitsch in tourist towns, with elephant insignia for foreign tourists.
Banarsi brocade is a fabric whose history runs parallel to socio-cultural transitions in this country. These transitions are reflected in terms of designs and fabrics. The brocade travelled to adorn the turbans of Maratha kings as well as the girdles of the Kodava community of Coorg, Karnataka.
Brocading, or silk weaving, didn’t begin in Benaras until the 17th century.