London Show Exhibits Sari’s 21st Century Rebirth

AFP

London: In an Indian ‘fashion revolution’, the sari is being reinvented for the contemporary day, and 60 ground-breaking samples will soon be on display at a new exhibition in London.

Curator Priya Khanchandani said that the sari has undergone the most rapid change in its 5,000-year history over the past ten years. The London exhibition highlights the sari’s 21st-century reinvention, showcasing everything from sari fashions worn by young women travelling to work in Delhi and Mumbai to the magnificent creation that was the first sari to grace New York’s iconic Met Gala.

When Khanchandani visited some of the designers in Delhi who were transforming the sari, usually a single long piece of unstitched cloth draped over the body, she told them that she first became aware of a renaissance in 2015.

“I observed the sari being reborn in a really stylish way as a staple piece of clothing. The Offbeat Sari, which debuts at the Design Museum on Friday, was being worn by younger women than I knew before,” Priya stated.

“They wore them in ways that I didn’t expect,” the curator said, adding that they were frequently highly intelligent women who were writers and artists.

Having previously viewed saris as a garment to be worn for special events or weddings, she suddenly noticed them being reinvented as everyday clothing, even teamed with T-shirts and sneakers. The emergence of mass consumerism and social media in India, along with the expansion of the nation’s urban middle class, has sped up the sari revival, stated curator Khanchandani.

Priya opined, “I think that the manner in which saris were being worn became a grassroots movement because of the influence of internet media, which has a pretty huge reach in India, particularly among young people.”

Pushing Boundaries

Popular hashtags that have seen a vast array of images shared online include #sarilove, #sarifashion, #designsarees, and #sareeindia.

Despite the sari’s long history, it was not until last year that a sari was seen at the celebrated annual Met Gala event in New York.

Worn by Indian businesswoman and socialite Natasha Poonawalla, the eye-catching outfit included a gold Schiaparelli bustier and a flowing Sabyasachi sari. Indian fashion designers have pushed the boundaries by experimenting in a variety of ways in addition to creating pricey couture saris.

The Raj Kilt, by the Little Shilpa brand, is described as ‘half kilt, half sari’ and reflects the cross-cultural experiences of Indian designer Shilpa Chavan. Some of the most eye-catching and innovative exhibits include a sari adorned with sequins cut from old X-ray images from hospital waste and another in distressed denim.

The exhibition’s choices highlight the sari’s capacity for extravagance and ingenuity, but there are also examples of how it is being used to convey concepts of identity and resistance.

Hundreds of thousands of members of the so-called Gulabi Gang, a group set up to fight domestic violence, including sexual abuse and child marriage, in rural India, have adopted bright pink saris along with bamboo sticks as the symbol of their movement.

Also included in the show is a purple silk sari embroidered with sequins and crystals by the brand Papa Don’t Preach. After the label posted a photograph of the sari being worn by the author and comedian ALOK, who founded the #DeGenderFashion movement, it decided to remove the ‘womenswear’ wording from their messaging.