I posted this a while ago, but since then the readership of the blog has grown by, lets just say 9 yards, to denote a large number.

I am not convinced that this is the most expensive saree EVER, but it may be so in the modern, record keeping era.

It costs about $100,000, and weighs about 15 lbs; the saree is hand woven by Chennai Silks and is studded with precious stones and pays homage to Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings, including the one called “Lady Musicians” shown in the picture.

The exceptionally stunning saree is meticulously woven with 12 precious stones and metals to depict 11 of Raja Ravi Verma’s popular paintings. Explicitly projected is ‘Lady Musicians.’Besides, the border of the saree pictures 10 other paintings of the artist that pays tribute to 20th century artist.

The best part of the saree being that the women in the paintings are intricately hand-woven and beautified with jewels of gold, diamond, platinum, silver, ruby, emerald, yellow sapphire, sapphire, cat’s eye, topaz, pearl and corals.

Already in the Limca Book of Records, this 40 lakh saree will be the first silk saree that required the use of 7,440 jacquard hooks and 66,794 cards (that helped in punching an explicit design using CAD software) during the weaving process. Moreover, a group of consummate workers took nearly 4,680 hours.

The original painting is:

The Chennai Silk can be found here.