Saris Of India: Tradition and Beyond

An immersive journey through India’s most enduring garment, told through its weaves, regions, and people, and an authoritative portrait of the sari as India’s most expressive and evolving textile form.?

The sari is the most representative apparel of India that has intrigued men and tempted women all over the world. 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 colors and patterns that are constantly evolving. This book 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. Travelling district by district, village by village, Saris of India explores an entire spectrum of traditional weaver and printer settlements in fifteen sari-producing states of India.

Rta Kapur Chishti is the co-author and editor of previously published Saris of India volumes on Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal as well as Handcrafted Indian Textiles – Tradition and Beyond. She has been a contributing author to several other publications. As a writer and translator she has written about the life and work of craftspersons and scripted for films and exhibitions. She has been consistently involved with research and development of handspun-handloom textiles. She is the founder of the label Taanbaan which produces saris and organized workshops for those who wish to learn the wonders of this unstitched garment and make it more relevant to their lives today.