Saree Dreams

Every time I see painting of Raja Ravi Varma, I am reminded that as to how little have we learned about the saree design since he put paint on the canvas.

This was almost 100 years ago and it looks like as if it came out of Manish Malhotra collection!

I don’t particularly like it when people refer to ChicknKari embroidery as just “chicken” - e.g., oh, thats a nice chicken saree!

Doesn’t evoke the right picture in your mind! Can you imagine chickens running around with white sarees on them!

It should have been called NoorJahan embroidery, or embroidery of prophets.

Traditionally Chicknkari is the white thread embroidery done on the white muslin or mulmul. The word chikan comes from the Persian word Chakeen meaning making delicate patterns on the fabric.

The art is said to be introduced by Noorjahan the beautiful queen of Emperor Jahangir. She is said to be an expert in embroidery and inspired by the Turkish embroidery. According to Megasthenes, the chikan originated in East Bengal. He mentions chikan, the florals on fine muslins in 3rd century BC. The craftsmen believe that the origin goes back to the time of Prophet. It is believed that while he was passing through a village in Uttar Pradesh, he requested a villager for water. On being offered that, he gave the art of Chikankari to the poor villager as an art that will never let him go hungry.

Anyway, back to the white chicken saree, oh, I mean, white chickankari embroidered saree.

Its hard to see how pretty the embroidery is in the pictures. The details don’t really show up well. But I do know that it can be very intricate, very luxurious, very simple and very proper.

I remember a friend of mine ( Hi T!) entered a beauty pageant a while ago and while others were busy matching the color of the blouse with the color of the jewelry, she waltz in there with a white saree with minimal make up and minimal jewelry and she looked so stunning that judges had no choice but to pick her!

As I said, simplicity never goes out of style!

The temples in Lepakshi town of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh are home to some of the most beautiful paintings of Vijayanagar period available today. The Papaneshwar temple in Lepakshi was built in 1535 A.D.

Source

Wished I knew the story behind this painting! But notice the lack of a “blouse”.

Blouse is a much more recent phenomena with a saree - sort of a Victorian influence to ensure that the top part of the woman’s body is covered.

Also notice the black and gold border on a simple white saree.

Here is an illustration for 1847; a maroon saree with green blouse and saree matching thin maroon border on the blouse sleeves.

As they say, if you wait long enough, the style you abandoned will come back in fashion!

I have been neglecting Saree History and heritage it brings. Here is a start of a new series where I will periodical show paintings, mostly from 1900’s but some earlier ones, that are saree related.

And this is a great start: not just a saree, but a saree shop painting. Absolutely amazing, I’d buy that saree in a heart beat.

Also, notice the shoes on the floor - pretty nice.

Yes, there is a saree patent and thankfully it has expired by now, so you don’t need to worry about it.

It goes beyond the current crop of automatic sarees, which are essentially skirts. This one is more like a dress that you slip on and it includes the blouse as a part of the readymade garment.

There is another, even older patent that was filed in 1968

This one is closer to what we have now; essentially converting a saree in to a skirt that is secured with fasters.

I wonder if there are more saree patents in India? I will check.