Indian Dress Styles

[ramana]

The Telegraph has an op-ed.



8 Sept 2010

SIX YARDS OF GRACE AND ELEGANCE

WITHOUT APOLOGY

The sari hardly needs to be revived, since it is alive and well





Ogaan, an exclusive, expensive designer store in south Calcutta has recently morphed into, well, another exclusive, expensive designer store — the Sabyasachi Mukherjee store. The opening of the store was accompanied by the Page 3 pageantry that would, and should, accompany the name and label of one of India’s foremost designers. Mukherjee’s efforts to convert the Page 3 people of Calcutta into sari lovers is commendable.



Mukherjee has written elegies on the sari and has emphasized the fact that it is seen as a ‘behenji’ or ‘aunty’ option for the fashionable. The sari is dying “bit by bit” everyday, he fears. To allay his fears, many of his friends and clients turned up in cotton saris at the inauguration. “All the maids must be in full action all morning with safety pins... this is the biggest achievement... to connect these women back to their roots,” says the designer without a hint of irony. There is some good news and some bad news for Mukherjee in all this. First the bad news: the pins are now off and a majority of his invitees are back to their muftis, not having been returned ‘to their roots’. The aforesaid maids, possibly sari-clad, must have survived that taxing morning.



Now the good news. The sari’s existence does not really depend on Mukherjee’s charmed circle — the garment is a survivor and will outlive its rejection by the size-zero brigade.



But it is true to some extent that the sari has lost its aspirational edge. Our mothers had role models ranging from Indira Gandhi, Maharani Gayatri Devi, Rekha to Sharmila Tagore, who wore saris wherever they went, without either apology or the need to prove a point. They wore it because they wished to. All of them were as much at ease in other forms of clothing.



If the sari is seen as a fuddy-duddy option today, it is because of Mukherjee’s tribe, the designers. They have discovered a world beyond the six yards of the sari, and would uphold their creations as the byword of fashion since that makes good business sense. Even those who are known for their trousseau/sari lines occasionally do more harm than good to the cause of the sari. For example, Tarun Tahiliani has said that plus-sized women must wear saris when they go out, inadvertently sounding as if he thinks that the sari is the last resort of the obese.



The media also have a part to play in this. They have decided that there are areas of public life where the sari has no place. The college campus, for example. Recently, there was an outcry against a college that wanted its students and teachers to come in saris. While any dress code is objectionable, sections of the media went overboard in calling it ‘Talibanization.’ Welham, Dehra Dun, one of the most exclusive girls’ schools in India, has a salwar kurta uniform. Nobody questions that, but when Muralidhar Girls’ College recommends the sari, it’s seen as Talibanization.



Mukherjee’s zeal in making his fashionable friends take to the sari may or may not be successful, but he can get some consolation from the fact that the future of the sari does not depend on his endeavour. The sari does have competition, but it has enough grace and elegance to adapt and survive. Mukherjee would do well to brave the midday pre-Puja chaos and come to Gariahat to look at the women and the sari shops. Both were there before he came along and will be there long after us all. The sari is alive and well.



MALAVIKA R. BANERJEE