16th Century Craft

pure silk is essential to making an authentic banarasi sari they can only be made here in the town of varanasi where the craft was born weavers use methods that go back 600 years and even add gold and silver threads to their designs at one point they were so expensive only royals and the wealthiest families could afford them but cheap imitations made with synthetic silk have flooded the market in recent decades forcing many weaving families out of business so how is this centuries-old tradition.

still standing to weave a banarasi sari a weaver first sources fine silk it goes through a cleaning and dyeing process before it's made into thread dyers drape the white silk over steel rods and submerge it in tanks of boiling soap water and then rub the yarn with their hands until it's soft and bright.

They give it one more wash and hang it to dry colors are mixed with warm water caustic soda and acid they dip the roll in the mixture for two to three hours to make sure the threads are coated evenly dyes change colors according to the season festival and city muhammad absal ansari has been working with this silk since he was 15 years old he has preserved the traditional ways of weaving banarasi sarees like using the khadi a 200 year old wooden loom he follows designs that are punched on cardboard cards he buys from arun kumar it's sort of like making a stencil arun uses this tool and a hammer to pierce holes in them nowadays he's so fast he can make thousands of cards in one week the drawings blend muggle persian and chinese motifs this work is called likhai artists use traditional designs or invent their own mohammed ties all the cards together then hangs them on the moon but the difficult part is working with the threads most banarasi saris are six yards long and it takes five thousand threads to weave a single one and muhammad works for two days to assemble them on the loom he sprays water to preserve their elasticity and to make them softer now he can start weaving foreign these golden silk threads are called zari and that's what gives the banarsi saris their signature look muhammad uses the threads in smaller spindles to create the iconic banarasi brocades he throws the shuttle from one end of the loom to the other to create the design it's a tedious process that requires many years of experience to master and muhammad has been doing it for 40 years silk flourished in varanasi between the 16th and 18th centuries when the mughal dynasty ruled over india they were known for their lavish taste in architecture food and clothing so weavers added real gold and silver threads into their silk garments and only india's richest and most influential families could afford them in the 19th century more than 300 thousand weavers worked across the city but industrialization brought in power looms that produced faster and cheaper fabrics today less than 15 percent remain in this traditional craft compared to its beak these traditional fabrics are so festive that they're reserved for special occasions in some communities only brides wear them the lightest sari will take about a week to weave heavier ones can take a month and more intricate designs can take six months to complete while muhammad is able to only make four to five sarees a month a machine can finish a design in one day detailed and complicated designs can be sold for thousands of dollars but fake banarasi saris have flooded the market since the mid 1980s.

They can sell for as low as 2500 indian that's a quarter of what muhammad charges for some of his cheaper sarees to compete some business owners here in varanasi are opting to use the machines too and they've even started using synthetic yarns instead of real silk a major hurdle is that it can be hard to tell the difference between the two yes it is but muhammad cannot afford the costs that come with the modernization of his craft in 2009 the indian government issued a geographical indication for banarasi brocade's ansaris that means only hand-loomed sarees made in varanasi and a few other districts can be branded authentic but this did not stop the production of imitations and has not helped the traditional the weavers of the hand-loomed fabric remains uncertain but muhammad believes that people who know the value of authentic banarasi saris will continue to buy them.