fashion-and-trends

Updated: May 01, 2016 10:12 IST

It’s a great thing to follow trends, but sadly in our efforts to jump ahead of the fashion curve, we have ended up sacrificing one of our most stunning traditional attires - the sari.

We all would agree that the six yard wonder is losing out to jeans, dresses and other western attires. To revive the charm of saris, author and poet Sunita Bhuddhiraja, started the Facebook page Six yards and 365 days.

The group members, which include curator Alka Raghuvanshi and Kathak danseuse Shovana Narayan, regularly post their pictures in saris with anecdotes in an effort to inspire others to wear saris more often.

The sari, without doubt, is one of our most stunning traditional attires. (Tumblr)

“I have been wearing saris since ‘70s. I was doing my masters when my transition from skirts to saris happened. Of late, we are seeing lesser and lesser women adapting to saris. They are wearing all kinds of dresses, gowns and what not, thanks to exposure to fashion weeks, television and films. Saris have somewhere taken a back seat. This tradition has been there since ages. You see black and white movies, saris was the only attire. Saris were there during Vedic times, during Kalidasa’s Abhigyan Shakuntalam. The point is it’s been there for ages but now we are losing it. So, through this page I want to revive the charm of saris,” she says.

We all would agree that the six yard wonder is losing out to jeans, dresses and other western attires. But you can be different and wear a sari at weddings, parties, family dinners, and pretty much anywhere. (Pinterest)

Another reason, she tells us, is original weavers are becoming extinct.

Read: Four fashionable ways to drape your sari

“Traditional weavers are looking for other well-paying revenues. It takes weeks to weave a sari and when people don’t buy it, their hardwork goes for a toss. I have visited their place, their villages. There are a very few families of weavers left who have that kind of workmanship. We want these people to continue their business of weaving but that will happen only if they find the business lucrative. This page is primarily to encourage the weavers. It’s not a platform for marketing or selling. Through this, we get to know who got the sari from where and then we go and buy from that weaver.”

Being somewhat of a pioneer in the field of fashion, actress Sonam Kapoor has been seen wearing a sari often. (Pinterest)

This page was started in August last year and today, they are celebrating the success of it with a seminar at India International Center which will have speakers such as Shovana Narayan, Alka Raghuvanshi and designer Ashwini Narayan.

Read: Who says saris can’t be fun, funky and freewheeling? Proof right here

“This platform gives us an opportunity to display what we have, our treasured saris. We appreciate each other, which is very empowering. We haven’t met anyone but we are like family, connected through saris and stories. We are talking about only pure, handwoven saris, not synthetic. We also learn from each other about uncommon saris like Pasapali , Baluchari, Jamdani, Jamawar,” she says.