CHENNAI: I found myself staring at my cupboard again, fresh out of the shower and steadily getting late. Rows and rows of clothes and still nothing to wear. As trite as the statement sounds, this is about the only time I do not use the statement in rhetoric. Half my clothes don’t fit me anymore; most of the other half had been deemed inappropriate for work. It wasn’t until I had dropped to the floor, g roaning in desperation, that I saw some light at the bottom of the tin box — the whole six yards of reprieve in my limited sari collection.
My love affair with the sari stretches far back — long before I discovered ripped jeans and summer dresses, before I found a way to make long skirts and halter-neck tops work for me. My saris have borne witness to weddings, work worries, concerts and date nights, pasta-making, sleepovers and sex. There’s one for every mood. And turns out, there are plenty for when you’ve been ‘exceeding your briefs’ (my friend’s way of saying ‘putting on weight’). While I am still reeling from the joy of this new-found benefit, my mother seems to have it figured out ages ago After her tryst with the salwar kameez (what some in the family termed as ‘midlife crisis’), she decided she could only ever trust the sari to pack her up right for the world to see.
Over the years, her sari collection has grown to devour every section of the master-bedroom wardrobe; the only inheritance I’m rooting for (okay, the house wouldn’t hurt either). You’d certainly never find her standing in front of her cupboard, claiming she has nothing to wear. Could the sari be the solution to our other new-found concerns? Three months into the lockdown, when clothes shopping is yet to catch up with the ways of the virus-riddled world, will saris offer an answer to all our wardrobe woes? Apoorva readily agrees, but with some terms and conditions attached.
A city-bred woman, who thinks the sari is appropriate for anything from a date to a funeral, has belted out so many crowd favourites on an everyday basis. In the interest of keeping the exercise economical, she even sticks to the ‘one blouse to pair with them all’ wisdom. Despite all this, there’s no escaping the need for night/home clothes. As essential as it may be, she does not want to risk visiting a store.
“My concerns are sanitary. There is no proper way to ensure that the clothes I try or buy are properly sanitised. I can’t buy clothes off the rack; my body proportions are different and need to try them on. The only other option is to buy something much bigger than my size and live with it,” she explains. Apoorva would happily sleep wearing her sari, but the world isn’t that kind, it seems. “I would choose the sari for nightwear if not for this weather. Not at all conducive for the chores I have in store. I have no idea when I’ll be able to go out and buy clothes,” she says.
She isn’t the only one with shopping concerns. Swathi, a self-described “specific case”, is mightily concerned about physical shopping post-lockdown. Though she is in Germany, where work against the virus seems to have found better success, she doesn’t see herself stepping into a store for the rest of the year. Manasa, who shares her apprehensions, doesn’t buy the sari pitch though. Despite earnest attempts, it’s never made it to her list of comfort wear. She would rather visit a store (equipped with a mask, sanitiser and social distancing tactics), hope to God she picked the right size and continue to rely on any outfit but the sari. There’s always online shopping and size charts, she points out.
Amid such opposition, there are some takers for the revolution too. For Angeline, it didn’t seem like a valid choice until someone pointed out the genius of it; now, she is all in awe of the power of the drapes. “It’ll work so well! You don’t have to worry about the size. It covers every bit of excess flesh (unless you want it revealed, then it does that too). Sure, it’s a lot of fabric but I’m counting on the gift of air-conditioning. You can match ten saris to one blouse and it wo u l d s t i l l work well. What more would I need?” she exclaims. For some, however, it’s the layers that come with the outfit and the finesse required in its draping that deprives it of any appeal.
Lucky for them, there are hundreds of ways to wear a sari and you can be sure to find something that will suit you, offers Subhiksha Venkat, fashion and lifestyle blogger. “I have worn a sari as a maxi dress and people didn’t realise it was a sari till I told them. In that way, a sari is five metres of versatility. The different ways of draping a sari (a random YouTube search will yield more answers than you can handle) will really appeal to a lot of youngsters who struggle with it,” she suggests. It’s certainly helped her, she confesses.
While she finds great comfort in cotton drapes, silk saris a little trickier. But she finds it much easier to handle when she can experiment with the draping style. For Charu Srikanth, founder of Colors & Mirrors, it was experimenting with blouses that helped her rediscover her love for the sari. “I used to love saris when I was in college.
Then, there was a period when I had put on weight and I thought saris were not for me. That was because I was not satisfied with the kind of blouses I was getting. Recently, I figured out the blouses that suit my body type and this gave me the confidence to wear any kind of sari that I want to; so I started wearing saris again. Now, the sari is something I pick for any occasion,” she narrates. All it takes is for people to get that saris work well for anybody, anywhere, she offers.
While there are many like Sushmitha, who rely on their trusted stock of loose t-shirts and sturdy jeans (not to mention, those like Malar who would happily settle into their nighties), there are those like Charu who believe that the sari has been the answer to most of the Indian woman’s requirements. Even as there is no way to say if people will pick up on the goodness of the sari in the post-lockdown world, it will remain a beautiful piece of clothing that will always be around in the way you want it, suggests Charu. Here’s hoping!