Darshan Dudhoria, heir to a legacy saree business, argues that fine handloom sarees should be treated like serious luxury assets, not nostalgia. He highlights how genuine Korvai Kanjivarams, Kadhua Banarasis, Balucharis, Dhakai Jamdanis, Muga silks, and hand-stitched Kanthas hold or grow in value due to rare skills, limited supply, real zari, and certified provenance.
Darshan Dudhoria, the CEO of Indian Silk House Agencies, wasn’t an outsider in the world of sarees. His maternal grandfather, Sri Sumati Chand Samsukha, founded Indian Silk House Agencies in 1971. His mother, Patibha Dudhoria, and father, Sudip Kumar Sing Dudhoria, carried it forward. By the time Dudhoria — a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur and heritage custodian — returned from London to lead the company, he brought with him a different lens: to treat saree as a category that deserves the same rigour as any other luxury product.
“The more deeply I have studied this world, the more convinced I have become,” he says during an exclusive conversation with Robb Report India. For Dudhoria, a fine handloom saree is one of the few things you can buy today that does not lose its worth tomorrow — and, cared for properly, carries that worth into the next generation.
Indian Silk House Agencies, headquartered in Kolkata, is today one of the most respected names in the Indian handloom trade. The silk house is known for sourcing directly from weaving clusters from across the country — from Kanchipuram and Varanasi to Bishnupur and Assam — and for maintaining a catalogue built entirely on authentication, provenance, and craft.
While the brand serves a wide retail base, entry prices in its premium heritage segments begin at Rs 15,000, but the fastest-growing segment now sits well above Rs 25,000. Real-zari Kanjivarams and master-woven Banarasis run comfortably into the lakhs.
“Customers in this bracket don't want what is in trend,” says Dudhoria. “They are asking what will hold its value.” Now, what follows is an edit of his recommendations, all built on craft that cannot be scaled, skill that cannot be replicated, and supply that is structurally, irreversibly shrinking.
The Kanjivaram is one of the most imitated sarees in India. Which is precisely why a genuine one is so difficult to find. A Korvai Kanjivaram is woven using a technique in which the body and the border are created as two separate pieces on the same loom, interlocked by two weavers working simultaneously. Very few weavers in Kanchipuram can still execute this. Add real zari — silver wire twisted around a silk core and dipped in gold, meaning actual precious metal present in the fabric — and the saree carries a GI tag, a structurally constrained supply, and material value that exists independently of the weave. "The Kanjivaram is perhaps the most misunderstood saree in India, not because people undervalue it, but because the market is flooded with imitations that have trained buyers to accept less," says Dudhoria.
A Kadhua Banarasi is built motif by motif. Which means every flower, every leaf, every geometric element in the field is woven individually by hand — shuttle by shuttle, thread by thread. A single saree takes months. There is no shortcut and no machine equivalent. The number of master Kadhua weavers in Varanasi has been falling for decades; the craft demands years of apprenticeship and a patience that fewer young weavers are willing to commit to. "A powerloom can approximate many things," says Dudhoria. "It cannot approximate a Kadhua Banarasi. Every year, the pool of people who can make one thins further. An authentic piece that already exists becomes that much harder to replace, and that irreplaceability is what protects its worth."
The pallu of a Baluchari is a narrative — scenes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, from the lives of Nawabs, and the folklore of Bengal — woven into silk with untwisted thread that gives it a distinctive matte luminosity. The Swarnachuri variant brings real gold zari into the same tradition. Both carry GI protection. Bishnupur's weaving community is small, ageing, and deeply specialised. According to Dudhoria, "Baluchari and Swarnachuri are textiles that happen to be worn." He further adds, "these are pieces collectors hold and pass down rather than trade away, which is precisely why an authentic one is so hard to come by, and why it holds its worth the way almost no other textile can."
In 2013, UNESCO added the traditional art of Jamdani weaving to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. That recognition is not a marketing certificate. The world acknowledges that this craft is rare enough to be preserved as a civilisational asset. Every motif in a Dhakai Jamdani is inserted by hand — supplementary weft thread by thread — on a sheer muslin base. The time investment per piece is extraordinary. Of all the weaves Dudhoria works with, this is among the most labour-intensive still alive. "That alone makes it one of the most enduring stores of value a wardrobe can hold," he says.
There is only one naturally golden silk in the world — Muga silk. Originating from the Antheraea assamensis silkworm, which feeds on the som and soalu plants found in Assam, Muga silk cannot be cultivated anywhere else on the planet. Beyond its geographical exclusivity, what makes the silk more unusual is how it behaves over time. Muga doesn’t fade with age, rather, it deepens. According to Dudhoria, “every wash brings more lustre to the fabric.” Having seen century-old Muga pieces that look better than they did the day they were made, he adds how silk is one of the very few luxury materials that genuinely improves over time.
The Kantha is an embroidery tradition that involves hundreds of hours of running stitch, typically by a single artisan, across a silk base. What’s unique about Kantha is that no two pieces are alike because no two hands are alike. “When you buy a serious Kantha, you are buying original art,” says Dudhoria. “You’re buying someone’s time, skill, and vision in a form that cannot be replicated, scaled, or manufactured.”
To make things simpler for a buyer, the certification infrastructure exists. Look for the Silk Mark, the Handloom Mark, and GI certification — these are provenance, not formalities. Flip the saree and examine the reverse: a genuine handloom shows the same complexity on the back as the front, with no cut threads. "A powerloom piece cannot hide itself if you know where to look," says Dudhoria. A seller worth buying from can tell you which weaving cluster the piece came from, which technique was used, and how long it took to make. If they cannot answer those questions, they are not selling you what you think they are selling you. Store the right piece in a muslin cloth and refold it twice a year. A well-maintained handloom saree will outlast its owner.