The Weave
What makes a Banarasi a Banarasi?
A true Banarasi is hand-woven on a pit loom in or around Varanasi, in one of four traditional weaves — kadhwa (motif-by-motif brocade), kadiyal (interlocked colour borders), jangla (continuous floral net), or tanchoi (silk-on-silk satin weave). It must use real silk and real metallic zari — silver thread, gilded in gold — and it must be made by hand from warp to pallu by a single weaver.
Power-loom imitations sold as Banarasi exist; they are bright, light, and finished in hours rather than months. A real Banarasi has weight, a faint cool-to-warm shift against the skin, and a small irregularity at the back of the weave where the weaver tied off his weft. That irregularity is the proof of the hand.
