IT IS easy to take the six yards of fabric for granted. After all, it has been around for five milleniums, surviving multiple fashion trends from various invaders to European colonisation.
And we assume that it will be draped around for another 5,000 years.
The unfortunate twist in the sari tale is that the icon of Indian femininity maybe on the endangered fashion species list as new generations of the Indian women have pushed its status as a wardrobe staple to a fabric kept in a chest, sunk beneath layers of protective tissue and shaken out only for special occasions.
In his 2007 Times Of India op-ed column, diplomat-turnedpolitician Shashi Tharoor struck a sensitive warning chord that the sari was going the way of the kimono.
“What will happen once the generation of women who grew up routinely wearing a sari every day dies out? The warning signs are all around us now. It would be sad indeed if, like the Japanese kimono, the sari becomes a rare and exotic garment in its own land, worn only to temples and weddings. Perhaps it’s time to appeal to the women of India to save the sari from a sorry fate.”
Indeed with the shifting strands of globalisation and as more Indian women take their place in the business world, the sari had to give way to clothes that are much more convenient to wear at the workplace.
And when these women do wear the sari, it is to the temple, formal events or weddings and prefer the modern touches; sexy revealing blouses – they have Bollywood to thank for that – lighter fabrics with crystal or bead work.
The traditional heavy silks and cotton saris have fallen out of favour.
Hardest hit by the decline in the demand for the unstitched cloth are the traditional handloom weavers.
For instance in 2004, the famous Kanjeevaram saris were made by 22 cooperative weaver societies in the town outside Chennai which gave its name to the silk.
There are about 13 left today and in 2008 they sold US$12 million worth of saris, down from US$40 million in 2004.
A Singapore sari casualty was the 30-year-old Royal Saree Palace, which shut its Dunlop Street doors on Oct 16 this year.
One of the reasons for closing said Mr V.S. Lakshmanan, 79, was the lack of interest in the sari among local Indian women.
He said: “It was during 1980s when the churidar started getting popular among the local Indians and by 1990s, it seemed every one was wearing it, as it was very easy (to wear). They forgot about the sari, only wearing it to the temple or for weddings. I tried very hard to get my customers to wearing a sari more often but I didn’t really succeed.”
Columnist Bach Karkaria said in an interview with CNN about the decline of the sari that the Indian woman’s mindset has changed.
“I think her thinking is: I am different from my mother, certainly from my grandmother. I am practical, I have a lot to do with my life. I don’t have time to wrap a sari, go through that whole ritual. I’d rather do my aerobics, my yoga, all the things an empowered young woman does,” she said.
A perception that Singaporean Kalpana Chandrasegaran agrees with, the sari has become a workplace relic.
The 21-year-old reservations agent prefers to keep her saris for temple and weddings, like most young Indian women here. She cannot even fathom tangling with it on her daily commute on the MRT to work.
“It is too cumbersome and old-fashioned to wear a sari to work. While it is beautiful, it doesn’t come across as professional,” she said. And in a sea of business suits, you call attention to yourself in a sari.
Ms Devika Paul, 46, who works in a German firm here, used to wear saris regularly in Kolkata for work before she moved to Singapore more than 10 years ago.
“When I came to Singapore I felt overdressed, like a Christmas tree, and people would ask me what the occasion was when I wore a sari. I would shy away from it and now I wear it for dinners or special functions,” she said.
The doom and gloom over the sari’s fate led model- turned-editor and author Shobhaa De to design her own line of cocktail saris to make it palatable for the younger generation.
In a 2007 interview with this reporter she said: “There was this panic attack within me that it shouldn’t go the way of the kimono, where the younger generation think of the kimono as a costume and not a national dress that they wear with pride,” she said.
Indeed there are women in Singapore like Mrs R. Rajaram, a part-time antenatal counsellor and research co-ordinator at the National University Hospital and Mrs Terese Paul, principal director of fine dining restaurant, The Song of India who proudly drape the sari.
Mrs Paul, who is in her late 30s, told tabla! that she started wearing a sari when she was a young lecturer to look older than her students.
When she moved to Singapore with her husband 12 years ago, she admitted there
was very little opportunity to wear it on a daily basis.
When The Song of India was set up, she found the chance to start wearing them again and feels her job complements her style – Indian yet modern.
She added that since then her sari collection, stocked with her favourite designer, Satya Paul, has increased three-fold.
Mrs Paul, who is a mother of two daughters aged 8 and 3 says that the sari is the perfect garment for the Indian shape and its look can be professional.
“You rarely see a shabbily dressed woman in a sari as long as she has worn it right. It’s sensual and yet you can mean business in it,” she said. Adding that it is also a great ice breaker among the non-Indians who are increasingly fascinated by the sari.
“They ask me what kind of fabric it is and how do I keep it up,” she said with a laugh. But don’t sound sari’s death knell yet.
The sari was prominent in many of the recent fashion shows in Delhi and Mumbai.
The Press Trust of India reported that leading retail showrooms in New Delhi estimate a 15 to 20 per cent increase in sari sales over the last year.
“Sari industry is growing tremendously. We have seen a growth of 20 per cent from last year. In the coming two months, we are going to launch seven more stores,” says Mr Puneet Nanda, a designer at Satya Paul.
Fashion designer Neeta Lulla told the paper that saris are becoming younger as time passes and its demand is increasing. Says Ms Soniya Sidhu of fashion store Jinders in Selegie Road: “It has come back again.
Hermes just did an Indian- inspired show on the runaway, Victoria Beckham will be on the November cover on Vogue India wearing a sari. The sari is receiving a lot of attention especially in the West where they appreciate the materials and the hours that goes into making it,” she said.
At the recent India Fashion Week in Delhi, Indian designers showcasing their fall/winter collections seemed determined to repackage and reinterpret the sari for the new generation like Wendell Rodricks’ backless sari gown or Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s Chhotu Saris range.
He told The Times of India that his mission was to save the sari and the chhotu sari, which ends at the ankle, is his alternative to the dress, an “entry-level sari” for the younger generation.
“Everyone needs a little bit of desi (Indian) in their wardrobe and the sari is a staple choice. So, giving it a little bit of a twist will help the revival.”
The sari story, therefore, does not look it will wrap up any time soon.
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