REINVENTING THE BANARASI

GEN-NEXT IS REINVENTING THE ICONIC WEAVE, WHICH, FOR LONG, HAS BEEN AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE TROUSSEAU OF INDIAN BRIDES. FROM CHIC WESTERN OUTFITS, JACKETS TO POCKET SQUARES AND SILK WOOL SHAWLS, BANARASI IS TURNING OUT TO BE A GLOBAL FASHION STATEMENT.

- BY AJITA SHASHIDHAR

When Aditi Chand and Udit Khanna got married in 2012, neither of them was interested in Udit's 200-year-old family business of textiles.

While Aditi was heading M&As for the infrastructure vertical at Edelweiss Capital, Udit was running a recruitment and education consulting company in London. A chance conversation with an elderly weaver in Varanasi proved to be the turning point in their careers, and turned them into founders of Tilfi—a luxury brand celebrating the 12th century Banarasi craft.

“He (the weaver) told us there was no future in the craft and that his children didn’t want to take it forward. When we advised him to motivate them, the elderly weaver looked at Udit and told him—'you are asking me to encourage my children, but you yourself have settled in London.' There was no arguing after that. We decided to come back,” remembers Aditi. They registered Tilfi in 2013, and eventually launched the brand in 2016.

When the duo registered the brand, the decline of handlooms was at its peak. Though the iconic Banarasi, known for its intricate weaving styles such as rangkat, jamavar, tanchoi, and kadhua still enthralled the average Indian, weaving one took months and was prohibitively expensive. This led to the advent of cheap power-loom replicas. A gorgeous zari-laden sari, which took a weaver 60-100 days to weave and commanded a price in lakhs, got replicated by the power-loom and was sold for a few thousands.

“We understood how the craft can be presented in its finest form. We chose to be in the luxury segment since we realised it’s the only way the craft can be presented. Anything lower, it will get replicated. What we create today is hard to replicate. The mastery involved is very high,” says Udit. The average order value at Tilfi is upwards of ₹50,000.