About the Silk

We sell wedding-guest and festival sarees, not bridal. That is a deliberate choice: bridal Kanchipurams start at several times this price and we would rather sell you an honest $150 saree than a dishonest one.

Almost everything we stock is Kanchipuram silk, and almost every piece carries a Silk Mark tag — the Indian textile board's certification that the cloth is genuine silk. A few pieces are silk our supplier does not attribute to Kanchipuram, and we list those as silk rather than as Kanjivaram. The details table on each listing is definitive.— the Indian textile board's certification that the cloth is genuine silk.

What the words mean

You will meet these terms across South Indian silk. Not all of them describe what we stock today; they are here so the vocabulary is not a barrier.

**Kanchipuram** (also Kanjivaram) is a place and a technique. A true Kanchipuram is woven in and around Kanchipuram town in Tamil Nadu, often with a korvai border — body and border woven separately and interlocked by hand, which is why the join has a slight ridge you can feel with a thumbnail.

**Retta pettu** is a border of two narrow zari bands set beside one another rather than one wide band. **Ganga jamuna** is a border that runs one color down one edge and a different one down the other.

**Buttas** are the small motifs repeated across the body. **Mangai** is the mango or paisley shape; **yaali** is the lion figure carved on temple pillars.

**Soft silk** is mulberry silk woven at a lighter weight — it drapes closer to the body and costs less than a heavy Kanchipuram. **Semi-silk** has a silk warp and a cotton or blended weft; it is lighter and much cheaper, and if we ever stock it the listing will say so.

Zari, and the limits of what we can tell you

Zari is the metallic thread this weaving tradition is built on. Pure zari is silver thread gold-plated over a silk core, and it is part of what makes an heirloom saree cost what it does.

**We do not claim to know which of these is in a given saree.** Our supplier records each piece's zari as gold, as silver, or records none at all, and our listing repeats exactly that and nothing further. We are not in a position to assay the thread from here, so we will not tell you it is pure and we will not tell you it is not.

What we can state plainly is which sarees have **no metallic thread at all** — zero-zari pieces, where color and weave carry the whole design — and we do, on the listing.

The photographs

The product photographs are our supplier's, taken by them in Tamil Nadu and used with their permission. They are not our own studio work and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Their quality varies. Where an image is large enough to stand it, the product page lets you zoom right into the weave. Where it is not, we do not offer the zoom at all rather than blow up a small picture and call it detail.

Fiber and care

Every listing carries its fiber content, country of origin and care instructions. If anything there is unclear, ask us before you buy — the contact page has an email and a phone number with the hours that actually work from the US.