Sarees from Magizhchi Tamil Movie

Love this picture from a Tamil movie. Six different sarees with different drapes.

Very age appropriate sarees and drapes, perfect. Kudos to the costume designer.

I also saw a few other stills from the movies and noticed a few other typically southern drapes. I’ll post those when I get a chance.

Ultimate Luxury wedding show – sarees

I like NC Shania’s work – especially her emphasis on wearing the saree in different ways.

I have advocated that for eons – there are 200+ different ways of draping a saree and I think every woman should know at least five, so she can take the same saree and transform it in to something new and exciting and wear the patina of a different culture.

In the wedding exhibition, NC showed off 36 different ways of wearing a saree. Here she is explaining the drape of one of them.

She is taking the exhibition to Delhi in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll have a second opportunity to emphasize this.

I know, some of you want to see how it is done and I should do my part in explaining some of it. Oh, how much I miss Chantal Boulengere at this time. A few years ago I looked in to getting some high quality videos done, but then I got distracted with something else that was shiny. One of these days, I’ll focus on it again.

Dries Van Noten’s Spring 2010 Ready to Wear show,

Dries Van Noten’s Spring 2010 Ready to Wear show – from fall of last year. It had a lot of south asian ovetone and this one is one of the more interesting combo.

worst pinning I have seen in a long time

No idea why Shreya is desperately messing up her saree!

This is wrong in every respect – this is like “I have to show ONE of my endowments” This pinning on the bottom of the blouse is so amateurish.. We know god has been good to Shreya in certain departments, she doesn’t need to prove it to us.

If the pinning changes the natural flow of the saree, it is not done right. No abrupt stretch marks on the sarees please… OK. that sounds bad, but you know what I mean.

Saree or not a saree?

I call these things Sarini – saree+Bikini combined.

A Tribute to Chantal Boulanger: A Woman Who Preserved and Promoted the Art of Saree Draping

This post is a tribute to cultural anthropologist Chantal Boulanger who passed away in December 2004. This French woman was an expert on south India’s Dravidian culture. She spent over a decade in India, from 1980 to 1996, researching Hindu customs, temple practices, and photographing Indian life and spiritual customs mostly in Tamil Nadu.

One of her greatest contributions is her research and meticulous documentation of over a hundred different variations of saree drapes. Most of these saree drapes would have eventually become forgotten if it had not been for her work on recording and preserving this unique art.

Chantal’s work has helped to preserve a precious part of Indian culture. Her book Saris: An Illustrated Guide to the Indian Art of Draping is a priceless contribution to the world of sarees. Her books classifies families of sarees and provides detailed diagrams of how to properly drape each saree. Below is an example of one of Chantal’s depictions showing how to drape a saree in Mul style.

Thank you Chantal for your passion and hard work to preserve this precious art and vital component of Indian culture.

Love Hate relationship with butterfly sarees

I have a love hate relationship with butterfly sarees. Most of the times I hate them, but once in a while, in a moment of weakness, I start to admire how the essence of saree has been retained.

A few years ago, due to a major TV star wearing it very often, it became very popular and then its popularity crashed. It has seen some revival recently, but I am concerned that it will not become a part of classic saree trends which permeates the general saree wearing populous.

Sort of for the same reason why automatic or pre-knotted ties have never become popular.

Think of them as dresses and start admiring them again.