Saree’s Reinvention Displayed at London Exhibition

In the Indian “fashion revolution,” the sari is being reinvented for the contemporary day, and 60 ground-breaking specimens will soon be on show at a new exhibition in London.

According to curator Priya Khanchandani, the sari has undergone the most rapid change in its 5,000-year history over the past ten years.

The London exhibit highlights the sari’s 21st-century rebirth, 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 reimagining the sari, usually a single long piece of unstitched cloth draped over the body, she said she first became aware of a renaissance in 2015.

“I saw the sari being revived as an everyday garment in a way that was very fashionable. They were being worn by younger women than I knew before,” she told AFP ahead of the show, The Offbeat Sari, which opens at the Design Museum on Friday.

“They were often quite intellectual women, writers and artists… wearing them in ways that I didn’t expect,” she said.

Previously witnessing saris worn for formal occasions or weddings, she was startled to see them being reimagined as casual attire, sometimes even paired with T-shirts and trainers.

According to Khanchandani, the sari’s revival has been spurred by the emergence of mass consumerism and social media in India as well as the expansion of the nation’s urban middle class.

“The influence of digital media which has a really significant reach in India, particularly among young people, allowed trends to spread and I think allowed the way that saris were being worn to become a grassroots movement,” she added.