Feel the silk before you commit to the saree
The Test Drape Kit is the way our patrons begin. Five small swatches of the silks we weave in Madanpura — Katan, Tussar, Mulberry, Mashru, cotton-silk — slipped between cards of hand-pressed paper, so you can hold them under your own kitchen light before you spend ₹50,000 anywhere.
Three zari swatches sit alongside: real silver-gilded, silver, and an artisanal-spun thread our weavers braid for the lighter daywear pieces. A folded burn-test card explains what to look for when someone tries to sell you plastic and call it Banaras. A printed sixty-second pre-drape micro-zine shows you the wrap and the hidden hooks, on paper. A handwritten note from Danyah finishes the envelope.
The kit costs ₹1,500. The credit inside it is ₹2,500 — applied automatically when you order any saree above ₹25,000. The maths is intentional: the kit pays for itself, and pays you a thousand rupees back, the moment you decide.
5 silk swatches
Katan · Tussar · Mulberry · Mashru · cotton-silk
3 zari swatches
Real silver · silver-gilded · artisanal-spun
Burn-test guide
Tell real Banaras from plastic in sixty seconds
₹2,500 credit
Auto-applied to any saree above ₹25,000
₹1,500 · free shipping · credit auto-applies at ₹25,000+
THE KIT, ANSWERED
Five questions our patrons ask before they order
A ₹1,500 envelope is a small decision and a real one. Here is what is inside, what it costs us, and what happens if you keep it on a shelf for a year.
One envelope, four objects. The first is a card of five silk swatches — Katan, Tussar, Mulberry, Mashru, and cotton-silk — cut from running lengths that left our Madanpura looms last month. The second is a card of three zari samples: a real silver-gilded thread (the bridal-grade), a pure silver thread, and an artisanal-spun jari our weavers use for daywear pieces. The third is a printed burn-test guide — a folded paper card that walks you through how to tell handloom Banaras from powerloom mill cloth, in sixty seconds, over a candle in your own kitchen. The fourth is a sixty-second pre-drape micro-zine, illustrated, on hand-pressed paper. A short handwritten note from Danyah closes the envelope.
Because the silk inside the kit is real silk, cut from sarees that took our weavers between two hundred and four hundred hours on the loom. The zari swatches contain real silver. The hand-pressed paper, the printed micro-zine, the muslin sleeve, the courier — none of those are free. ₹1,500 is the number at which we break even on the kit itself; the credit inside it is the part that costs us. We do not subsidise the kit with the saree price. We subsidise the saree decision with the kit.
Every kit ships with a single-use ₹2,500 credit code, printed on the founder's note. The code is automatically applied when you place an order on any saree priced ₹25,000 or above. There is no minimum cart value beyond the saree itself, no expiry beyond eighteen months, and no exclusion on collections — bridal Katan, mashru, cotton, the new drops, the trunk-show pieces. The kit's ₹1,500 cost becomes part of the saree purchase, and the additional ₹1,000 lands back in your wallet as a soft welcome from the atelier.
Then the kit is yours — five real silk swatches, three real zari samples, a folded burn-test card you can use to vet any Banarasi seller for the rest of your life, and a handwritten note from the atelier. We do not chase the unused credit. Three in ten patrons keep the kit on the shelf for a year before they decide. One in ten never buys a saree from us and writes to say they used the burn-test card to spot a fake elsewhere — which is a small victory we are happy to fund at ₹1,500.
Yes. Mothers buy them for daughters. Brides buy them for the women in the wedding party. The credit codes are issued one per kit and remain single-use — they cannot be combined on a single saree, but they can each be redeemed by a different patron on a different saree. If you are ordering more than five kits at once, write to atelier@danyahbanaras.com and we will issue trunk-show pricing and dispatch in a single courier.
What ten minutes with the kit decides
Verified buyers · reviews collected after both kit and saree had been received
- Verified buyer
“I started with the kit, three months later I had the saree.”
I am not the kind of woman who spends ₹50,000 on a saree from a website she has not visited. The Test Drape Kit arrived in four days. I held the Katan swatch up to the window in my Bandra kitchen and knew. Three months later, the Madanpura kadhwa for my sister's wedding was in my cupboard.
Rhea S. - Verified buyer
“I started with the kit because I live in New Jersey.”
Buying a real Banarasi from across the ocean is the kind of thing my mother would have done with her sister in tow. I did it with the Test Drape Kit on my dining table. The zari card showed me what real silver-gilded zari looks like under daylight. The burn-test paper showed me what plastic looks like in flame. I ordered the saree the next weekend.
Priya N. - Verified buyer
“I started with the kit and used the burn-test on a Surat dupe.”
A cousin had bought a Banarasi from a wholesale market in Surat. The kit's burn-test card explained how to check whether the zari is real silver or coated copper. We did it together at her kitchen table. The thread melted into a black bead. That was the moment I understood what Madanpura actually costs — and why the kit pays for itself.
Aanya K.
Why a ₹1,500 envelope is the way an atelier introduces itself
Our looms have been in the same Madanpura mohalla in Varanasi since my great-grandfather strung the first warp in 1923. The weavers we work with — twenty-three named master weavers across seven collectives — are the fourth generation of the families he taught. A real Katan with kadhwa motifs takes them between two hundred and four hundred hours; a bridal kadhwa-jangla, eight to fourteen months.
You cannot feel any of that on a website. You can feel a swatch in your fingers. The kit is the way an atelier hands its silk across an ocean.