'Dashāshva' Brown-Gold Pure Katan Silk Tissue Dampach Saree

Dashāshva

A luminous drape, rendered through the rare Dampach technique, this saree is a meditation on one of Varanasi's oldest stories. At Dashashwamedh Ghat, the city's most sacred threshold, Brahma performed a grand yagna of ten horses to welcome Shiva, and named the place for that act of devotion. These horses now move across the fabric: each one woven separately, in varying scales and postures, their movement distributed across the lower body and border as if caught mid-procession. Rendered with the freedom and energy of Indian modernist painting, the Dampach style lends them the quality of a brushstroke - tonal, gestural, each figure a different expression of the same unstoppable energy.

• Colour - A delicate yet deep warm bronze-brown
• Technique - The elaborate and laborious Kadhua technique of discontinuous brocading, which involves hand-weaving each motif separately. The Dampach style creates tonal gradation within the weave itself through the precise manipulation of extra weft threads pressed into the silk; each motif is rendered with the quality of a painted figure.
• Fabric - Katan silk tissue
• Speciality - A one-of-a-kind creation, released on National Handloom Day in recognition of the extraordinary skill required to bring a composition of this ambition to the loom. The story of Varanasi's oldest ghat, held in six yards of silk.
• Tilfi Promise - Pure. Handloom. Banaras.
• Note - The saree comes with its own blouse piece. The model is wearing a separate blouse for styling purposes.