Some saris have been with us for generations, resting quietly in wooden trunks. Others are the very first sari you bought with your own salary. Every sari has a story to tell. Its colours and borders please the eyes, its soft rustle delights the ears, its weight comforts the skin, its faint fragrance touches the nose, and its taste lingers in memories of sweets and feasts from the festivals of the past.
But what do we do with these precious saris when fashions change so fast? This Navaratri, young designers are giving them a new life, weaving them into fresh styles while keeping their stories alive.
To cut or not to cut?
The decision to alter a sari, especially an heirloom sari, is deeply personal. For those who hesitate, the designers suggest first exploring the art of the drape. Deepika Sridhar, founder of Dhara Upcycle Studio, offers a simple starting point. She says, “For those who are hesitating to cut their heirloom saris, there are a lot of draping styles they can explore. These days, you can combine the Indo-western styles by adding a belt, or wear a can-can in-skirt and drape the sari like a lehenga. It will give good volume and grandeur to the sari.”
Fashion designer and stylist Stephin Lalan proposes more theatrical innovations. “One such option would be to drape the sari in a very different way. What I also recommend are corsets, different cut bralettes, and blouses that can be paired with the saris, where, in latching one of them, you can probably even drape the sari over the body and then wear the corset over it, which is a complete contemporary twist.” He also points to traditional styles, saying, “Another thing that I’ve done is a khada dupatta draping, which is basically a Hyderabad Nizam style of draping; we use the entire sari without it being completely draped onto the client.”
Fusion is the element on which designer and educator Purushu Arie focuses. “Styling the sari with offbeat combinations is a safe way to repurpose and innovate the sari look without cutting it,” he says. “Saris have been paired with western jackets and corsets for some time now. Draping the sari in half-sari style with trousers gives a trendy, comfortable, and chic pant-sari look.”
When scissors are summoned
When the decision is made to cut, the process becomes a balance of preservation and creation. Deepika thinks across generations. “I have always transformed my mother’s sari and my mother-in-law’s sari into pavadais for my daughter. They feel so happy when grandkids wear them.” For saris that are falling apart, she suggests, “those kinds of fabrics can be converted into a beautiful wall hanging and place a little brass item, so that will be a beautiful piece of art. And you can use it to decorate your Golu padis. You can take small borders and do appliqué work in your blouses.”
Cherishing the legacy each sari holds is the guiding principle for Stephen.“The border and pallu basically carry the story of the entire sari,” he explains. “I prefer the client to bring the sari to me first, and then I would like to see the entire sari and figure out which is the strongest element that I want to keep as the focus,” he shares. When creating a lehenga, “we’ve kept the original pallu as a dupatta, so the whole essence of the sari is still visible in the new form.” For damaged pieces, he finds solutions. “We have also converted a few saris into jackets and capes. We did this when the sari has been damaged throughout the body, and only the borders were intact. We’ve chopped those borders and put them on pure georgette or like habutai silk pieces.”
The transformations are both practical and conceptual for Purushu. “It was during Covid that I began upcycling pre-loved saris by cutting them into different styles — from traditional anarkalis and suits to Indo-western shirts and dresses…” He focuses on the fabric’s design potential. “The border and pallu are the most fascinating aspects of a sari, since they feature designs distinct from the body. I incorporate the sari borders at the hems and sleeves. Likewise, mixing the pallu design with the main body of the sari creates fantastic design combinations.”
More into sustainability
For these designers, upcycling is a single thread in a larger, more complex weave. Stephin approaches sustainability through mindful design. “Sustainability is not just about reusing saris, it’s got an entire process holistically,” he states. He describes a zero-waste collection where “we had pin-tucked from selvedge to selvedge of the fabric, and there was from zero to no waste… the leftover pieces were repurposed into functional pockets.” For him, sustainability is a mix of mindful designing as well as ethical making.
“Sustainability is the primary motto of Dhara Upcycle Studio. Here we use non-toxic pigment colours,” shares Deepika. “I want to spread that idea to everybody so that nothing goes to waste and people slowly start reducing their fast fashion cravings. I too was a hoarder. We don’t require so many things to feel happy,” she says.
“There are many more foundational principles to sustainability than just reusing, recycling, or upcycling,” shares Purushu. He highlights a fundamental challenge. “The techniques used in sustainable production often fail to be scalable in mass production. Consumers are not a homogeneous group; they come with different spending power influenced by gender, class, and caste. What is passed off as “sustainable fashion” is often out of reach for a large segment of consumers, and a handful of elite shoppers splurging on this “sustainable fashion” isn’t going to significantly reduce the carbon footprint. Without socio-economic equality, ethical production practices inherently raise product prices, making them unaffordable for the masses,” he shares.
The designer notes that due to this affordability paradox, socio-economic equality is a prerequisite for achieving true sustainability in fashion. Explaining his philosophy, he adds, “I prioritise sustainability as a sequential process: systemic (primary), structural (secondary), and personal (tertiary). Through our design philosophy and aesthetic themes, we address systemic issues like socio-economic inequality and resource distribution, which often perpetuate the over-exploitation of resources and marginalisation in global supply chains. Structural priorities involve both formal institutional reforms and informal collective actions. Inclusivity isn’t just an aesthetic photoshoot but reflects in our hiring and payouts.”
Upcycling a sari is both a creative act and a mindful way to connect history with the present. As Purushu concludes, “While personal responsibility like reduce, reuse, and recycle plays a crucial role, it becomes meaningful only when reinforced by systemic and structural frameworks. Without the enabling environment created by these earlier levels, individual actions (of a handful of privileged elites) lack the scalability and long-term impact required for genuine change.”