Sarees: An Art

Putting on a saree or sari is an art, and one I have not fully accomplished learning yet. 
The first thing I learned about sarees when arriving in India is that they are still a very prevalent form of dress. Although many reports and statistics claim the decline in use of the traditional dress styles, such as the sari, is occurring due to more women entering into business and simply finding other fashion options to be more manageable, I would never have guessed it stepping off the plane.

For the first few days I was in a state of never ending shock at how beautiful everyone looked all the time. I decided that Indians have fashion right. Everyone looks nice and even fancy, from the very old, wrinkled and bent over woman to the small child, rich elite to beggar on the street, with their bright, colorful, embroidered, beaded clothing and covered in every range of design imaginable. I’ve never tired of looking at everyone.

Now is time for a small confession. I have a terrible habit of staring. I’m also fairly shameless about it. I decided a while back that the glance, glance away system was not good enough for me. When I see something or someone I want to look at, I want to look at it and fully take it in. When I see someone walking on campus with  interesting shoes or intriguing way of walking I watch them for a while, I examine their face and their clothing combinations and I take as much time as I like to fully see why it was they caught my gaze in the first place. If anyone reading this has found themselves feeling awkward or offended due to my habit, let me ask your forgiveness now and inform you that I simply find you very interesting and I’m okay with you staring back at me if you like. Here in India I get a taste of my own medicine because something about being white simply gets you stared at, I guess, so I won’t ask their forgiveness for spending three months here staring at them and their never ending, beautiful textiles.

Now, on to the story: we knew we wanted at least one fairly nice sari to practice this art form on our own and maybe feel as beautiful as everyone we’re around always looks. Shopping in India is really fantastic. As you can see in my pictures you walk into a store and wall to wall there are packages of material. They put the material for the tops and bottoms and a scarf (these are usually long tunic style tops and genie pants or tight bunched legging style bottoms and always with the scarf, the Indian scarf deserves its own post some time but it’s always a part of their dress), all together in one package so you can choose an outfit that way rather than worrying about putting it together on your own. Below is an example of a salwar kameez (the pant and tunic outfit). 

We’ve spent a good amount of time wandering in and out of stores looking at lots of different material. After making a choice you take it to the tailor. We have a favorite, his shop is on the corner and is a small room packed with material and folded hanging collared shirts covering the back wall. He sits at a chunky metal and manually operated foot petal sewing machine and gives you a big smile while his hands never stop with the perfectly straight line of stitching he’s currently working on. His two helpers, who take measurements and cut out patterns, then begin. You stand there and have every part of you imaginable measured, quickly, while someone writes down all your sizes, you’re glad you don’t quite understand in their language or you’d be slightly afraid you need to do more of that jogging now that your running partner has arrived, yeah, that’s me. Two days later your full outfit is done for about six American dollars. After working with the tailor we found a store that specializes in sarees and a new process began. 

The back half of their store is covered in soft cushions and I took my shoes off to step onto it as they unpackaged yards and yards of material. The sari material will range from four to nine yards and at the end is a piece of material with decoration that they cut off and sew into the top, which is called a choli. I never cease to be overwhelmed by choices, especially with regard to fashion, so she continued to pull different colors and designs out for me until I was surrounded, standing in the center of folds and folds of colorful material. I started holding pieces up to me and asking which looked nice with my face.

I believe the small Indian woman helping us found us somewhat amusing and at this point she gestured me over to the center of her padded floor and began to dress me, maybe thinking this would help in the decision process, or maybe thinking it would be fun to dress up the American girl surrounded by all the material she was trying to offer me.

 This was unexpected and exciting all at once. We’d been fairly concerned that learning the sari art would be difficult for us and we didn’t know who we could find to teach it, and now here I was being dressed by a woman in the sari store! Lori and Beau took many pictures and near the end we got a video of her doing the more essential beginning wraps and folds so we can practice on our own.

One of the first things I learned is that you wrap the sari material over a petticoat and that is what you tuck the pleats into. You begin by wrapping the material around yourself entirely like a long skirt and tucking it in near the hip. Then is the most difficult part, I’d say. She did it quickly and with ease, pleating the material back and forth in about 1 ½ inch folds. Well done this produces what I called the mermaid like bunch at the feet. All the folds are tucked in at the navel. The remaining length of material is the more decorative part and she left it draped over my shoulder. At this point the real art of sari work became apparent to me, the many, many forms of draping.

She began by pulling it all around my torso and then proceeded to pull it across my chest, then pleat it at my shoulder leaving it draping in the back.  She then undid it and pulled it up over my head, undid it again and draped it elegantly over my arm and had me pose to the front, to the side, turn in a circle. *snap, snap* 

We had the cameras going as she showed us all the many styles redressing me over and over again. I finally understood the usefulness of a dressing maid and how it can be fun instead of just completely awkward to have someone help you dress.

My reading has informed me that these styles are often regional and have also evolved over time. Different styles also function for different situations, while the mother needs her hand free of the long bit of material she will pleat it all at the shoulder  and pin it there, and the professional sari look that began with airplane hostesses has a longer top, tight and pressed pleats down the skirt and is pinned up entirely on the shoulder. Women will frequently use the extra material to drape over their heads, acting as the scarf that is so very important to all forms of dress in India.

 

While she dressed me another few women walked into the store to do some shopping but were intrigued by the American girl playing doll while the Indian woman played dress up, and they decided to join in.

Pre-headband Ditching

I not only had the wrong kind of shirt (pink, old and slightly baggy cotton spandex blend) to go with my lovely sari wrap, but I was wearing a bandana as a headband with my hair pulled back in a big white scrunchy. I succeeded in removing the bandana to continue the photo shoot but the woman in red decided this was not sufficient and walked right over to me and pulled the scrunchy out of my hair, letting the poor unkempt tangles fall over my shoulders and down in my eyes. I swept the short pieces back out of my eyes and the *snap, snap* of the camera continued. 

Getting Rid of The Headband

The Woman Who Finished My Hair

I finally settled on the dark royal purple one. The tailor was called in and they began work on my top. There were so many beautiful colors and designs but that’s the one I’d been wearing so I probably bonded with it enough to decide it was fun and bold and worth becoming my one expensive sari purchase; plus it’s a great reminder of the day I got to play dress up with the Indian sales lady.   

Now that I have my top I've been working on wrapping myself up and I miss having the help, but I'm getting better. Here's one quick picture of my attempt. Besides the lighting being not so great and the colors not as vibrant, my wrapping is coming along okay.

I'm still highly impressed with Indian women and their skills at pleating, creative wrapping and most of all doing nearly anything imaginable while wearing a sari from chasing children to construction work out in the middle of the road, you'll see it all here In India!