Back in January Sunny mentioned a trend, in Indian films, towards showing inappropriately saree clad heroines in snowy mountain scenery. Well this isn’t a Bollywood movie, this is Shelby Collins attending a Hindu wedding in Braintree in Essex, about thirty miles East of London. Unfortunately the wedding took place in December 2010 when the area was suffering from some particularly severe weather. It does make for a very winsome picture but I do feel for her in those blizzard conditions. There’s a longer shot below the fold. (Click on the pictures to go to their respective Flickr pages.)
So why was an American attending an Indian wedding in Britain. I had to ask, and, as I suspected, there’s an interesting story here. Shelby explained that, ‘The wedding I went to was between an Indian woman who immigrated to America and a white American man. I had met the couple in America and became part of the groom’s wedding party. The bride very much values her culture and heritage and the groom respects and loves that about her. The wedding took place at the bride’s hometown in the traditional Indian style.’
My thanks to Shelby for letting me post her pictures here.
I find these shots so very charming!
I know it’s just me, but I’ve often felt the average firangi looks a tad bit, well, uncomfy when clad in a saree.
Perhaps it’s the stereotypically exotic notions of the country of origin. Or the complexity of the garment. Or maybe the sometimes vibrant and blingy nature of the more glamorous ensembles. Nah, I’m probably just reading too much into this.
Still, here are some grand shots of a lovely caucasian woman having a joyfully grand time–and she’s in a saree!
Well, I’m sure the rather unique setting and circumstance add to the charm and her reaction. But nonetheless I do dig dese images.
Brilliant post!
Speaking as a firangi, you’re right, it takes a while to get comfortable in wearing saree, many of us don’t let the border stay low enough at the bottom so that it shows our ankles (see Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love – she’s tall, but the saree could have been draped a little lower – it looked high-watery), or god forbid our petticoats. Many of us wear ill-fitting, out of date blouses because we don’t have access to knowlegdeable tailors, and finally many of us put the saree on without having observed other women wearing it. Basically it just takes practice. This lady looks great though – whoever helped her with it knew what they were doing. Especially if that person was herself!
I call that heroic sari-wearing.
Star, you have summed up nicely what I suffer with when I’m looking for a new saree and a tailor, my only option at this time is either do it myself (which I have just started) or take a rather costly trip into London to find one. I also get a bit ruffled when I see sarees being worn incorrectly by fellow firangis, I feel that if you choose to wear such a complicated and beautiful garment a fair amount of research to go into it. when I’m at such events I normally go armed with many safety pins and make good a complete disaster. I would make a great auntie!
I feel so alone with my saree obsession, no one in my family or in the work place understands it, I’m trying to run a blog about my dilemma, white girl coming out of saree closet, however I still have not met many firangis that feel the same, at least now I know there is one more
xx
Shelby looks stunning, she is very brave facing the British snow!
The pictures in this post should now be working again. I’m not sure what went wrong but I hope you’ll take another look if you missed them the first time.