Festivity is in the air along with a bit of smog and a lot of happiness! Parties being arranged, get-togethers being organised, shopping expeditions being launched, wardrobes of mothers and grandmothers being ransacked for ‘that perfect traditional saree‘ or if nothing works, then the ball for the procurement process for getting just any saree is set rolling.
These days, doing traditional things, eating traditional food, wearing traditional attire appears to be ‘in’, which simply means that the battles between the parent and the younger generation has considerably reduced, especially when it comes to draping a saree for a festival, a wedding or that special family function. Both, the younger and the older women are seen a lot more in sarees, and to be fair, there are a lot of factors that are responsible for this change, but there is someone out there who, to my mind actually started this revolution and is no other then well known ‘100 saree pact’ group; Ally and Anju set the seed for something as simple as simply digging into their collection of sarees as often as they could. This is something my mother, grandmothers and aunts and perhaps yours too, had done for years gone by, but somehow, something had got lost in this mad race of life…what these two women did was light the fire back again! No rocket science, just kickstart a ‘movement’ of doing something out of the ‘current normal’, something that should have never got lost in the first place!!
How often have you been part of a conversation that goes on the lines of ‘I have so many sarees that I got at my wedding and have hardly had a chance to even wear them all‘, ‘I don’t buy sarees any more, wearing trousers and salwar-suits is so much more practical‘ and the lists of these sorts of conversations can go on forever. I grew up where the women in my family wore sarees during the day and even at night! It was just something that they did and still continue to do; this was a core part of their being and then suddenly, one fine day, I was all grown-up and wearing sarees for me just got limited to weddings!
Then one fine day, two women, Ally Matthan and Anju Maudgal Kadam came up with an idea to drape their six yards as often as they could with pride and oodles of style…the word started to spread and before I could even blink, there was social media flooded with images of the most wonderful women in their sarees and to make this even more spectacular, the pictures were accompanied with beautiful stories associated with the drapes. Do you fancy seeing some pictures of these remarkable women who love to wear their drapes, with pride and elegance as they go about their everyday tasks? Before we have a peep, let me just mention that this post is not about trying to convince you to sign up to this #100sareepact, it’s simply about wearing sarees more often. So, here we go for some inspiration:










So, what happens now? Do we continue to wear sarees? Of course! but, did I ever stop and did you? I certainly didn’t but, yes, if I was to be completely honest here, it was a lot easier to throw on a salwar-kurta to work or for that special occasion, but now this ‘saree wearing me‘ has got a kickstart and all is well in this saree kingdom. Thank you ‘100 Saree Pact‘ for stirring my soul or should I say ‘my saree wardrobe’? Either way, it’s happy saree days…
Much love to you all, continue to dig deep into wardrobes and drape away!
Shilpa xx
Cover Image: via