The Solution

The solution is to create products and services that are in harmony with the art, the skill, the weavers, their self respect and the demands of the market. It is about bringing a unique skill into the forefront and making it commercially viable for the weavers’ community and designing products with contemporary standards.

Weaving silk is a unique skill that requires both mind and body. There is an aesthetic tradition that has been preserved for centuries but faces extinction today. In a world of mass machine production, uniqueness is in the danger of being averaged out.

We believe in the speciality and indigenousness of the Craft of the Varanasi silk. It is a product that is as relevant and desirable today as it was before and is suffering from not being updated. Our efforts are to bring creative solutions to this situation and make it appropriate for the modern times.

Our Approach

In the interest of being part of the solution, we intiated the project Varanasi Weavers. We believe that these weavers have magic in their fingers; they are not asking for pity. Rather, they are just lacking the chance to prove their skills today. We want to motivate a certain sense of self respect and the right to be. It is our sincere hope to let the craftsmen do what they are good at the same time making a living from it and not be pushed into compulsion. Our hope is that a beautiful tradition, slightly modified for the modern day world, will live on for many years to come, and that another outstanding example of the ingenuity of humankind will be preserved.