Painted allure

Resurgent Heritage

Fashion designers are also making the most of the trend. Shanta Malhotra  of Pune has a new, refreshing take on  Kalamkari  saris which makes them perfect for every occasion. 

Says she, “In Kalamkari, different colours sourced from  vegetable dyes, hand-painted figures of gods and goddesses and the motifs of animals and birds… all blend together beautifully. The 2000-year-old craft is fascinating. It takes months to create a beautiful hand-painted sari,” she says.

In a Kalamkari sari, the design of the border defines the  patterns on the rest of the piece. The prominent colours on the border pop up in many variations in the rest of the sari. The creative imagination of  two professional sari designers KM Lekha and Amritha Manoharan from Kerala has been captured by  Warli art, a tribal  art form from Maharashtra.

Both designers have successfully dabbled with hand-painted Warli saris. Warli paintings famously have a simplistic way of portraying the human form and village rituals. The same patterns translated on a sari create a different dimension altogether.

Lekha and Amritha are offering designer   Warli painting  saris in cotton, nylon, silk and georgette materials. Apart from Warli paintings, there are floral designs, geometrical and tribal designs as well in their oeuvre.  Adds Amritha  “It is not unusual to find many women wearing similar saris but a hand-painted has a detailing that is unique and each piece is a work-of-art.   We  also generally repeat  a design not more than once or twice.’’

Delhi-based designer Sarala  Jain has come out with a brand new winter collection of traditional  saris  on which interpretations of contemporary art  have been emblazoned aesthetically.

The designer first took pictures of paintings made by artist Chandra  Raghuvanshi, her partner in the venture, and then digitally juxtaposed the pictures on  saris. This entire exercise took her almost three months to complete. Says Sarala, “While the saris in Bhagalpuri, georgette and tussar and raw silk are traditional, the abstract paintings on top of them give them a contemporary look for the modern Indian woman.”

With the growing emphasis on traditional painting methods and organic dyes, saris also increasingly are employing these techniques.

If a tribal artist himself is involved in the process of creation, the product becomes even more valuable.  Adivasi designer Shreenkant Parika has progressed a long way from Kotpad ,  his Oriya village.

And it is in the deep jungles of Orissa that the blood red Aal  has survived through the millennia. Perhaps, the only existing natural dye  which totally eschews the use of any chemical ‘fixing' agents, the Aal dye is derived from the bark and root of the Aal trees which grow in abundance in the Orissa forests.

The dye is made by the Adivasis through a time-tested process based on the changing rhythms of nature and an unhurried, earthy way of life. Today, when revival of natural dyes  has got a cult status, Kotpad’s Aal dyed fabric stands out proud, much like the designer himself who processes the dye, spins the yarn, colours it and weaves the stunning Kotpad saris. His creations are a study in harmony: saris and dupattas with red or black temple borders,  red backgrounds with brown borders and a sprinkling of woven butties, bird, animal and fish motifs or mesmerising lines.

Puneet Nanda of the fames Satya paul’s design studio  has experimented  with art inspired  collections years back  with the works  of painter  S H Raza /Bose Krishnamachari, and followed it  up with another collection inspired  from the works of  Matisse. Of course,  these  saris do not come cheap. 

A sari imprinted  with the original  work of Bose Krishnamachari  is sold for as much as Rs 2  lakh.  But as the original  painting is priced at approximately  Rs 13 lakh,  this the sari is a more affordable way of collecting art! A little like collecting serigraph copies of famous masters. 

But saris too are getting more and more expensive. A sari studded with gold, diamonds, emeralds and other precious stones was made by Chennai silks  in 2007. The most special thing about this  sari is the Ravi Varma painting which has been woven into it. All the intricate details in the painting have been replicated like the curly hair of the ladies and the jewels they are wearing.

Besides, in the border of the sari, 10 other paintings of the artist are woven. The best part of the sari is that the women in the paintings are intricately hand-woven and beautified with jewels crafted out of gold, diamond, platinum, silver, ruby, emerald, yellow sapphire, sapphire, cat’s eye, topaz, pearl and corals.

This creation is arguably the  world’s costliest sari, as per the Limca Book of Records. It costs Rs 40 lakh and weighs around eight kilograms. This expensive  sari is the first silk creation that required the use of 7,440 jacquard hooks and 66,794 cards during the weaving process. Moreover, a large group of consummate workers took nearly 4,680 hours to complete the work.

It is easy to buy a painting  and hang it on a wall but when it comes to wearing a painting , it is important to remember to not wear too many accessories  when you wear an art reproduction. 

This traditional resurgence  is heartening and shows that the more contemporary we get, the more reasons we find to draw from our roots and to honour our past in new ways.