Indian Silk Dresses & Fashion Accessories

Indian Silk has been popular the world over - for its sheer variety of designs, weaving and quality. This is largely due to the fact that India has the unique
distinction of producing different varieties of silk.
Though India is producing all the varieties of silk dress materials, scarves/stoles, readymade garments, etc., the silk sarees are unique.The saree is almost synonymous with the word silk. It is the traditional costume of Indian woman since time immemorial. There are innumerable references in Indian literature about this draped garment and the style of wearing differs from time to time, region to region and people to people.
For Indians, particularly ladies, silk is lifeline - the elixir. Silk is always woven interwoven with way of life and culture of a region. Craftsmen all over the Indian sub-continent tried to master the weaving of sarees as exclusive as one can think of, putting motif designs, colours, pattern and versatility in them.
No two sarees can be of same design left to the choice of weaver, thus there is innumerable pattern or diversity. Over the years, specific centres sprung and developed to promote a particular pattern of design / weaving and they became distinct. Some of the famous silk centers in India are as under:-

Brocades of Banaras

Banaras or Varanasi is today one of the most important silk weaving centres in India. It is situated on the banks of the holy river Ganges, Varanasi is famous for its finest silk scarves and brocades. These scarves are known for rich and intricately woven motifs of leaf, flowers, fruits, birds, etc. on a soft colour background. Today no other centre compete with Varanasi. It has perfected teh art of weaving and there is no style of weaving, which it can not reproduced. The speciality of the area is the heavy gold brocade, which has an extra weft of rich gold thread running right across the wrap threads, which the motifs picked up in silk threads and jewel-like colours worked in the style of "Meenakari", a term used for gold enamel jewellery and here it is applied to woven gold brocades where the rich gold patterns are enlivened by introducing silk threads very much like richly coloured enamel designs worked in gold. The kinkab of Banaras is legendary. It is a glittering weave of gold and silver threads. The pure silk with a touch of gold is called bafta and the finely woven brocade of variegated silk is known as Amru. Besides this many other Indian cities are famus for there silk weaving work :- Bhagalpur (Bihar), Surat & Cambay (Gujarat), Champa, Chanderi, Raigarh (Chattisgarh), Kanchipuram, Arni, Salem, Kumbhakonam (Tamil Nadu) and Bishnupur, Murshidabad, Birbhum (West Bengal).