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"    Photo: Neil Rasmus/BFAnyc.com   A candle-lit cocktail hour, live traditional Indian music, and the stunning Freida Pinto greeted attendees at the Consulate General of India last night where Barneys New York hosted a dinner for Maiyet&amp;#039;s latest social change project: a silk weaving factory in Varanasi, India. The factory, designed by prominent architect David Adjaye, is meant to be a haven for the artisans who weave handmade silk used in Maiyet&amp;#039;s collections, a 600-year-old craft in danger of dying out. Maiyet&amp;#039;s efforts with its non-profit partner Nest to empower local artisans in countries like India attracted Pinto, a Mumbai native and staunch activist in her own right. We caught up with the actress, who sported an emerald Maiyet silk blazer, on the causes that she is passionate about.    On Maiyet&amp;#039;s brand philosophy: What I love about the brand is what they&amp;#039;re trying to change. What they are doing goes beyond fashion. It&amp;#039;s not in a way, like they are the &amp;quot;white knights&amp;quot; trying to save the people...they don&amp;#039;t have this mightier-than-thou attitude. They&amp;#039;re going in to save something that could potentially be extinct. On the tradition of Varanasi silk weaving: My grandmother used to own saris, my mother still owns saris, and I could not even imagine one hundred years down the line that [the silk] might not exist. It&amp;#039;s horrible. It&amp;#039;s absolutely horrible. I don&amp;#039;t want that! I want my children, my children&amp;#039;s children, my American friends, and my London friends to enjoy [it]. On Maiyet&amp;#039;s designs: I love the fact that they take things that are so traditionally ethnic\u2014Indian silk\u2014and make it something modern. So, it&amp;#039;s not like I&amp;#039;m asking you to wear a sari\u2014I&amp;#039;m wearing a dress. It&amp;#039;s so wearable and the designs are great! It&amp;#039;s not just taking the fabrics and making something out of it, it&amp;#039;s something very valuable. On the recent tragedies of garment industries in Bangladesh: It&amp;#039;s really sad...I do hope that what David [Adjaye] has been building in Varanasi, it sets an example for other places for people who make these [fabrics] and work almost in not safe or humane conditions. Most of them even work from home. Home is meant for living and not weaving silk. You need your own space and home...no matter what part of society you come from, you deserve it too. On &amp;quot;Because I am a Girl&amp;quot;, the other cause she champions with, and her involvement with Girl Rising: [Education] is really important. We are living examples because we&amp;#039;ve been in school, so we know how everything could have its time and its place. Unfortunately, if we don&amp;#039;t educate girls, it forces them into a life they won&amp;#039;t even want. There should be no one without [education]. And it gives them a voice, right? They can choose [who] they want to be. If someone wanted to be a politician go out there and do it. If you want to be a fashion designer, you go out there and do it.  The dinner setting; Photo: Neil Rasmus/BFAnyc.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/news/a16896/freida-pinto-maiyet-varanasi-project/>