A three-day sari festival highlighted the evolution and portrayals of the six-yard cloth
Spotting her in a mesmerising sari, a scribe asked laila Tyabji who she was wearing. “I’m wearing myself and a young weaver called Javed from Benaras,” laila promptly reverted. The reply might have left the scribe discontented but the founder of Dastkar made a statement, unanimously accepted by the admirers of sari. The six-yard long cloth has long been the pride of indigenous fashion and seen the colourful evolution in itself.
Talking more about its its evolution and portrayals, Red Earth organised a three-day sari festival in the Capital at Alliance Francaise. There were talks, seminars, film screenings and dance performances. Himanshu Verma, founder of Red Earth, said, “Saris bring together a vast richness of styles, materials, traditions, techniques, experiments, vocabularies and sensibilities.” The seminar titled love Saree: Notes From My love Affair With The Drape drew participation from stalwarts like David Abraham (creative director of Abraham and Thakore), Geeta Chandaran (Bharatnatayam exponent), laila Tyabji (chairman of Dastkar), Tritha Sinha (musician) and Rita Soni (CEO of Nasscom Foundation).
“Sari is an extremely wide and incredible lineage of craft. A classical drape is endlessly evolving, eminent in fashion circles and very much a part of our everyday lives. It is a breath of India,” said David. Majority of people work with surface orientation. In India decorative aspect is important to keep in mind blinking and shining embroidery, specially north Indians who have an inclination towards glittery stuff. He said one should makes plans and market them.
laila focussed on the fact that in contrast to “traditional” approach, the new saree gamut is a mesmerising reinterpretation by by contemporary designers. But she highly regretted the declining number of designers working with saree and said that craft platforms are unwilling to engage with the innovations and newer forms.
Geeta Chandaran shared her perspective saying “we must keep the tradition intact and there should be an aesthetic eye to improvise saree as it has a great future.”
Though we have an immensity of ways of looking at the saree, we experience this grand narrative in fractions and fragments, and never attempt to create a story which allows us to enjoy and engage with all forms and styles of the magic garment. From ikat, zardozi, patola, kanjivaram, Kerala kasavu to mysore silk...there was a display of interesting fabrics.
The festival includes a sari mela, an exhibition and sale of various sari collections, from hand-woven to fashion-forward saris, design interventions to digital print saris by leading and emerging contemporary designers working in varied media.