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Gilded fabrics: The tale of reviving the art of making pure zari

A designer label is making saris from zari made in Benaras' last, traditional zari workshop, says Gargi Gupta

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There's a story my mother liked to tell about her mother who once brought out an old Benarasi sari to give to an itinerant utensil seller in exchange for some pots and pans. The utensil seller, my mother said, took the sari, rubbed the zari design between his fingers and immediately agreed to give my grandmother whatever she wanted. "It was pure zari, made of real silver and gold. Naturally, he was very happy. He must have taken it to a jeweller who would've melted the zari to extract the precious metal," my mother said, still somewhat chagrined.

That was then. If the utensil sellers were to try something similar today, they'd most likely get zilch. For much of the zari used these days is something called "powder zari", in which thread is gilded with synthetic gold powder. Then there's "semi-real zari" in which a copper wire is first electroplated with silver and then with gold. "Even Kanjeevarams," says Swati Agarwal of the label Swati & Sunaina, "are not made of pure zari these days. The silver that they use is 30-40 per cent pure. This is what makes them stiff."

Agarwal should know. Swati & Sunaina specialises in Benaras weaves, especially complex weaving techniques that have all but died out today. "Part of our collection is revival of old textiles — to refute those who say that such things can't be done today. Revival of forgotten weaves and technique is our goal," says Kolkata-based Agarwal, a history graduate who turned to textile design and Benaras because she found that no one has been making saris like the exquisite, tattered pieces she's inherited from her grandmothers.

Swati & Sunaina's latest collection, showcased recently at an event in New Delhi, had a few such exquisite, rarely seen weaves. One of them, called Rang-kaat, involves weaving the base fabric with different colours, instead of a single one. It's so complicated that the weaver can only do about two millimetre a day, says Agarwal. Similarly, the dum pach weave, which has a Paithani-like pattern, is so painstaking that it takes one year to weave one sari.

Agarwal feels the weavers would not have been able to replicate the old designs and techniques had they not used pure zari. "We're the only ones using 98.5 per cent pure silver and gold plating. Pure zari is supple, it allows you to do really fine designs, as if painted with a number zero brush."

In order to ensure this, Swati & Sunaina has revived the art of making pure zari in the last surviving, traditional pure zari-making workshop in Benaras. The process used in this workshop is hand-intensive, with pliers to draw the wire and clay ovens to heat the metal. Documented in a video that plays in a loop in one corner of the exhibition, the process involves drawing out a bar of silver multiple times until it becomes thread-like, twinning it with silk and then electroplating it with gold.

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