Not So Quite a Simple Scheme....

How to wear a Sari

This gorgeous piece of an artistically crafted textile, zari-embroidery on pure silk net, a work of Varanasi weavers – masters of silk weaving and brocading now for generations, is a sari, India’s foremost feminine wear and an Indian woman’s global distinction, designed by the distinguished textile designer Suman Kumar. Not so much the work of looms as of hands working on it with fine needles in them for long hours and many days, this length of textile reveals great sophistication, finish, elegance and a feeling of being distinct. Mrs. Kumar has used for conceiving and designing her sari the pure silk net fabric in light pinkish saffron so that neither the textile’s thickness nor the colour’s depth overshadows her art, or the wearer’s figure and the figure’s natural lustre.

Silver sequins, bathing in translucent light, and butis – a two-leaf-one-bud form, one of the most popular motifs of Indian textile designing – printing, weaving or embroidery, laid all over using spangles, gold and silver threads, beads and cut-stones set in metal frames, pasted and sewn with finesse, all endowed with rare glow, embellish the entire field, though again these forms are so judiciously laid and they do not become instrumental in concealing the beauty of the wearer’s figure. Small but beautifully rendered butis, bathing in the golden and silver rays of light emitting from isolated sequins laid around, not only adorn the field – the sari’s larger part, but also impart to it exceptional elegance and rare beauty.

The sari’s more ornate parts are its borders and pallu – end-part worn variedly over the breast and shoulders. With a velvet strip mounted on the back giving it strength to support its weight, the two-inch wide border comprises five courses of golden spangles, two of silver, and other two, of cut-stones set in metal frames, pasted and embroidered, all nine alternating mutually and in symmetrical order. The golden spangles dually work. They provide to the rows of glowing silver sequins and bright cut-stones a dull backdrop against which they seem to have greater brilliance; but when tilted the other way, these very spangles glow with gold’s lustre. Each of the nine courses has on its either side a fine course of glass-beads. Quite a simple scheme, it glows in light with great lustre.

In its beauty pallu surpasses the entire sari and its every part. Besides sequins, gold and silver threads, glass-beads and cut-stones, it also uses variously dyed silk threads, shining colourful metal foils, a greater variety of glass-beads of various sizes, and diamonds – well polished and chamfered cut-stones having diamond’s brilliance. In designing pallu Mrs. Kumar has not used a pattern or set of patterns in running course over the entire pallu. Instead of, she has designed the corners with identical floral designs conceived with a flower around the base and a similar one on the top of the central branch. Twigs flanking it have not been designed with flower-motifs. A larger flower-plant with a main branch and shoots on sides with some nine flowers on it precedes the corner designs. The designer has used variously dyed silk thread in designing flowers. However, greater ingenuity reveals in her use of cut-stones for delineating branches and twigs, and in conceiving forms of leaves by using sequins and metal foils.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.