Anushka Sharma’s Benarasi sari: Did Sabyasachi take away the credit from weavers?

Anushka Sharma’s Benarasi sari: Did Sabyasachi take away the credit from weavers?

Designers are at times accused of stealing credit for the work done by artisans. But nowhere in his Instagram post about actor Anushka Sharma’s red Benarasi sari — the one she wore at her recent wedding reception in Delhi — did designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee claim that the sari was his signature design. However, a Facebook post by one Neha Srivastava from Lucknow has indirectly accused him of doing just that.

Srivastava picked up a line from Sabyasachi’s post (“I know copies of this saree will flood the entire country in the next few months to come, which also means that a million weaver’s children will be back at school.” sic) and then wrote a fuming post of her own (“It’s an unfortunate habit of Indian designers to take credit for the art & hardwork of nameless/faceless Indian weavers, who make the most exquisite patterns and designs on sarees, pay them next to nothing and jack up prices 5 to 10 times for just their ‘brand’, but this is seriously crossing the limit. Claiming credit for perhaps the most standard motif there is for Benarasi saree.” sic). She also said that she had bought a similar sari from Delhi in October this year.