And It's A Wrap

A sign of both modernity and tradition, in the hands of designers today, the sari is becoming an aspirational symbol too

- Chinki Sinha

DELHI-BASED DESIGNER David Abraham, one half of the Abraham & Thakore label, says he remembers his Syrian Christian grandmother changing out of her white chatta munda into richly coloured Kanjeevarams on special occasions. “I remember in particular a beautiful sapphire blue sari with a self border that she would wear,” he says. It was the question of identity that made him experiment with the sari—cut it, style it, reinvent it. For Abraham & Thakore, who have made both stitched and unstitched versions of the sari, it is a long piece of untouched fabric, which could represent a regional culture, could be a uniform for work, or even a metaphor for steamy sex.

And as the fashion weeks enter another Autumn/ Winter cycle, more saris, draped in unconventional ways, are expected on the runways. Identity is an important question in today’s age where high-street fashion brands like Zara and H&M are making the world a place of homogenised identities. So a culturally significant clothing like the sari is back in the urban closet with a bang.

Recently, the sari’s emergence as the new fashion statement was unfairly described as nationalistic promotion in a piece by Asgar Qadri in The New York Times: “...the Banarasi sari, the traditional garment known for its fine silk and opulent embroidery—and primarily worn by Hindu women.” The article, ‘In India, Fashion Has Become a Nationalist Cause’, took a myopic view of a garment that represents cultures crisscrossing many religions and identities.