"They Do Not Want To Be Treated As Charity: Shanti Banaras On Working With Transgender Models

Shanti Banaras: "The old people we were working with asked 'Why would you want that' and it was frowned upon. But when we did it, a lot of people liked it and said 'yes, this is the way to go' and a lot of minds changed here and there," says Amrit Shah of Shanti Banaras. Shah was speaking to us about their campaign Akathya campaign, where eight transgender women modelled their weaves.

Shanti Banaras is a weave-driven manufacturing unit based in Varanasi. Since its inception 70 years ago, it has been manufacturing Banarasi sarees. Akathya, the aforementioned campaign means inexplicable in Sanskrit. The CEO of Shanti Banaras, Amrit Shah in conversation with SheThePeople spoke about the brand, the Akathya campaign, working with transgender models, how it was received, how COVID-19 has impacted the textile industry and so on. Some edited snippets from the conversation.

Very close people to me earlier said that it was a bad idea to do a big campaign with transgender people. I said, “No, I think it’s a fantastic idea.”

How did the idea for the Akathya campaign come to be?

Shanti Banaras wanted to say something about being bold and being out there and standing out. When we worked along the design aspect we were thinking about what the best representation would be. Coincidentally, from my mother-in-law’s side, we had the support of members of the transgender community. It was an opportunity and an honour to work with them because they presented the idea of being bold. Thus, came Akathya the campaign.

Shobhana (left) and Vinita (right)

What was the main intention behind the Akathya campaign?

My mother-in-law closely works with a lot of transgender people and she wanted them to be a part of the campaign. I felt like they were the best community to represent it as nobody else in the world faces challenges as much as they do. The kind of stories they had to tell were different. We thought it would give them a good platform. We went to them and heard their stories and realised “People have to struggle just to live and just to make a decent living and not be mocked.”

I was a part of the manufacturing aspect and getting the sarees designed but the practicality of the concepts was done by them. We were told that it is very hard to shoot or do a campaign with a common person. It was very amazing how easily it worked out. They were very happy, a lot of them have done plays also. It was very professional and nicely done.

Have we as a society reached a point where using transgender models in the fashion industry will be normalised over the year?

Yes, we also came around a lot of places where people were doing this. We saw a lot of campaigns happening on the same lines. It will be a normal thing, the more people see I think a lot of mentalities will open up.

If you could sum up the entire campaign experience in one word which word would you use?

Openness. When I say openness it means openness to the idea. It’s the idea of standing up for yourself and believing in yourself. I think the representation of a saree and the representation of transgender women doing this is about standing up and believing in yourself.

Were all of the transgender models that were hired people that your mother-in-law knew?

Yes, all of them worked closely. They’ve been working with my mother-in-law for the past three to five years. The worst part is that what a lot of people do is treat them as charity. They do not want to be treated as charity. We just wanted to give them a platform to perform and show what they are. They wanted to be treated just as normally as everyone does.

Yamini (left) and Anusiya (right)

How was the campaign received? Not just by the customers but by the people within the company and the transgender models.

It’s been received very well. I won’t lie when I say this, the young crowd and the young people in the family were okay with the idea. The old people we were working with asked “Why would you want that” and it was frowned upon. But when we did it, a lot of people liked it and said “yes, this is the way to go” and a lot of minds changed here and there.

Very close people to me earlier said that it was a bad idea to do a big campaign with transgender people. I said, “No, I think it’s a fantastic idea.” It’s something which will give the sarees another aspect of the boldness effect. Strength will come from the transgender models and the sarees with them.

Sara (left )and Tasleema (right)

Does Shanti Banaras have any other initiatives where other marginalised communities are highlighted?

We haven’t done anything in the past as we’ve only been campaigning for two years. So far we’ve only done three to four campaigns in the past two years and in the last six to seven months we have been in a lockdown.

Speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic, has it impacted production or sales? If yes, how did the Shanti Banaras cope?

A lot of our production has been hampered. Earlier in the first wave, production was not that affected. People were still producing but due to the lockdown, there were no sales. Now, a lot of our weavers and our people are getting affected.

We work online and video call and talk to clients on WhatsApp, but when a client can physically walk in it makes a greater difference as compared to talking on the phone. Banarasi sarees are not a commercialised product, they are very personalised. Some things may look good in a photo, some may not. The true beauty behind the product and the choices made by the weaver cannot be explained without physically seeing the saree. The customer needs to be there. Shanti Banaras is primarily business involved in weddings, if the number of weddings or the number of people attending goes down it affects the textile market as a whole.

Feature Image Credit: Shanti Banaras
Photographer: Farhan Hussain