Saris: Tradition and Beyond

The most comprehensive and authoritative reference on the subject - put together after 20 years of research.

Invaluable resource for textile designers, historians, and specialists as the book gives detailed analysis on every aspect of the Sari.

Based entirely on the knowledge of the weavers and what they have carried as an inheritance from past generations.

Tells you where to go to purchase a particular sari and who to go and see
The sari is the most representative apparel of India, worn in a variety of ways. The sari is a fabric-length of varying densities in its body, borders and end pieces often woven by combining a range of cottons and silks in colours and patterns that are constantly evolving. Saris is an exhaustive overview of this fascinating unstitched garment and a cutting-edge documentation of design and all that supports it socially, culturally and economically. Traveling district-by-district, village-by-village, the book explores an entire spectrum of traditional weaver and printer settlements in fourteen sari-producing states of India. Thus emerges the first comprehensive compilation of the whole range and scale of the sari: the structures, designs, colours, the format and technology that make up the lingua of the sari. For the first time, this book offers a step-by-step guide for at least 108 ways of draping the sari, through a series of line drawings and colour photographs. A vivid account of how saris come into being for the lay reader and the specialist - be they textilists, designers, scholars or developers who will find this book equally engaging.

Contents: Preface; Credits; The Sari: An Introduction; Kerala; Karnataka; Goa; Maharashtra; Gujarat; Madhya Pradesh; Chhattisgarh; Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand; Bihar; Jharkhand; West Bengal; Orissa; Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu; Glossary; Bibliography.