The Marketplace for Varanasi’s Brocades

The tradition has been for the Muslim community to weave and the Hindu community to do the shop keeping and trading, although, in time, these lines have blurred.

This integrated system has enabled harmonious production and marketing for the Varanasi handloom world.

Many weavers who now get opportunities to travel abroad to demonstrate their weaving techniques fabricate miniature frame looms for convenience.

This enables them to show the customer the extent of skill required to value. The reality of hand weaving comes alive in contrast to factory production.

Women are the ultimate wearers of saris and fabrics from Varanasi. They will open at least 20 saris before they select one. Wedding shopping is another matter altogether.

An entire group of ladies from a family will take a trip to Varanasi to sit with the gaddidar for hours if not days, buying saris to be gifted to each of the important women in the family.

A master weaver explains the special designs and features of the gyaser cloth, woven by them for centuries, largely for Buddhist clients.

Every master weaver is also an effective salesperson who explains the differences between weaves to impress a customer about their diverse weaving techniques.

A wedding sari is almost mandatory in the trousseau of the Indian bride. It is usually flaming red, which is considered the most auspicious, followed by orange and fuchsia pink.

Other auspicious colours are yellow and maroon.

Even a small sari store in Varanasi has much to offer a customer in terms of designs and colours.

Even weavers from conservative families do not hesitate to travel to different cities in India, displaying pro-active qualities of salesmanship. Bearded young men enjoy posing like fashion models to display their saris more effectively.

It doesn’t take long for a young weaver-salesman to assess the tastes of a customer and bring out a range of what she may like.

Red and gold is a perennial favourite among Varanasi saris.

This young salesman-weaver is not embarrassed about posing like a female fashion model to display this sari to good effect.

As a salesperson from a weaver’s family displays his stock at a temporary exhibition, he will recite the name of the weaving technique and designs, and even whether it won a national or state award.

Streets in Varanasi are lined with sari shops displaying the special presence of the age-old practice of handloom weaving, sometimes even when their saris are not made on a handloom!

Varanasi weavers are able to make fabrics of any lengths for fashion wear, upholstery and table linen, apart from saris and stoles.

While window dressing is not the forte of shopkeepers in Varanasi, the prominent ones make an effort to present themselves well.

In a big city like Delhi, stores that deal exclusively in the very best weaves of Varanasi, pay special attention to window displays to show their fabrics to their best effect.

This window uses props that show how saris are traditionally stored, rolled onto the beam as portions of it are woven, before unrolling it and folding it to be stacked on a shelf or hung on a hanger.

A highly sophisticated display in a Delhi store shows how their specially developed Varanasi weaves have been used by international fashion designers with excellent results

A store in Delhi proudly displays a large range of brocades woven with their guidance on looms in Varanasi.

A display of the range of designer bridal lehengas.

Tailored wedding garments made of Varanasi silks and brocades have become a popular alternative to saris.

Here a male store assistant holds up a long skirt, lehnga, and a veil, dupatta, that are paired together as a wedding outfit.

Apart from window dressing, this large store in the capital city of Delhi provides a luxurious ambience in which to shop for Varanasi’s best silk textiles.

Fabrics last longer when rolled rather than folded along the same lines. A sales assistant folds a silk sari with an embossed design.

One of the new developments in motifs is the use of the lion, embedded within diagonal lines of the traditional Varanasi pattern of creeping foliage.

Even while salesmen model saris and skirts for good effect, the Delhi store adds decorative features like images of models wearing Varanasi fabrics, shot by professional fashion photographers.

The promoters and developers of this establishment claim they have more than 10,000 varieties of silk textiles from Varanasi.

Read more about Banarasi textiles here:
- The Holy City of Varanasi
- The Weaving Process