Post Sari Shopping
Jun. 27th, 2005 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiAhh... sitting in my bedroom after a lovely day of spending mine, and other people's money. The sari party was not well attended. Not sure what happened, as I had about "I'm comings" and no one actually came. But I was shopping for 3 - me and Tpau and Lady Sprite. So I did a certain amount of damage to Melinda's sari stash all by myself. I blew my own budget a bit, but managed to haggle from my represented customers so that I feel pretty happy about their final totals. Hoping they love their saris as much as I do. It was fun to induge in colors that don't suit my taste or coloring, but that I know will make other people look good. It's like getting to have the coloring you always wish you had. :)
Founda lovely one for me - it's a shot sari that is a festival of texture and color, with an extremely simple pattern. I can't remember the name just now, but it's a sari in a style of an old-time traditional weaver community. The community went bankrupt in the 70s or so and stopped making their signature sari style, as they weren't "fashionable". The weaver's moved out and started to make commerically viable "generi-saris" that suited modern tastes. But a leading sari designer stepped in, and blended the indigenous style with her own wonderfully good taste, and got the artisan's making their traditional style again, but with this enhanced, but complimentary aesthetic. The saris became wildly successful, and are now worth quite a lot of money. They are also gorgeous. It's like fairy fabric - it's gold shot with reds, purples, browns, white, and other golds, to create stripes solids and other patterns. It's got a very little bit of gold zari (metallic thread) in it, but it's hardly the center point, merely a token addition to the lustrousness of the sari. I think it will be a fabulous dance/court sari. Melinda jokes it is an "advanced sari", since the slippery, heavy silk is a challenge to leep in place, and the straight lines necessitate a certain scrupulousness in how to wear it.
I got it for a steal. No, the price would still make people wince, but it's not the most expensive sari I've bought. And it's a good deal less than it would be, due to happenstance of how it got to me. Melinda seemed very happy to have it go to me, because I love saris, know how to drape them well, and delight in the complexities and subtleties of textiles and color. And that we generally like each other - despite our mutually interesting social mannerisms. She clearly wanted this one to go to a "good home". :)
Also bought a few other things -- some nice, red, shoes (I'll get you my pretty!), a bandhani veil, a cotton lungi, and a 9-yard turquoise sari - also a rarity. Getting a 9 yard sari is rare. Getting a bright cotton, fancy checked pattern one - a style new to me, is even more rare, as there seem to be a very few, rare sources for them.
Could go on forever, rhapsodizing on the fun of sharing time occasionally with people who love and study deeply the same wierd thing you do. That the three of us - the hostess, the woman who brought the saris from Portland, OR, to here, and myself - all have compatible, but different approaches to textiles - is very neat. It's neat to not be The Sari Geek, but to be a Sari Compadre for a little while. We are all fighting the good fight -- to make a the world a more textile-rich, Indian-enthusiastic, !! shinier!! place. :)
Crazy Plan #3001: Write a book about the Sisterhood of Saris - a book about my adventures in learning about, and shopping for these lovely ornaments. Getting other people involved, meeting the unique personalities of those who share this love, and all the strange situations one gets into, being a Crazy White Woman who loves India. Hurdle #1: Become a better writers. Me speak OK English. Me could speak better.
Will write about Palio later - also very enjoyable... and busy. Sad to be not the devadasi to His Excellency. Glad to not be holding the competition, and glad to see it go to good hands, who I think will enjoy it as much as I did. ... if I loved it so much... maybe I should try be Court Scholar next year. :)
Good night.
Founda lovely one for me - it's a shot sari that is a festival of texture and color, with an extremely simple pattern. I can't remember the name just now, but it's a sari in a style of an old-time traditional weaver community. The community went bankrupt in the 70s or so and stopped making their signature sari style, as they weren't "fashionable". The weaver's moved out and started to make commerically viable "generi-saris" that suited modern tastes. But a leading sari designer stepped in, and blended the indigenous style with her own wonderfully good taste, and got the artisan's making their traditional style again, but with this enhanced, but complimentary aesthetic. The saris became wildly successful, and are now worth quite a lot of money. They are also gorgeous. It's like fairy fabric - it's gold shot with reds, purples, browns, white, and other golds, to create stripes solids and other patterns. It's got a very little bit of gold zari (metallic thread) in it, but it's hardly the center point, merely a token addition to the lustrousness of the sari. I think it will be a fabulous dance/court sari. Melinda jokes it is an "advanced sari", since the slippery, heavy silk is a challenge to leep in place, and the straight lines necessitate a certain scrupulousness in how to wear it.
I got it for a steal. No, the price would still make people wince, but it's not the most expensive sari I've bought. And it's a good deal less than it would be, due to happenstance of how it got to me. Melinda seemed very happy to have it go to me, because I love saris, know how to drape them well, and delight in the complexities and subtleties of textiles and color. And that we generally like each other - despite our mutually interesting social mannerisms. She clearly wanted this one to go to a "good home". :)
Also bought a few other things -- some nice, red, shoes (I'll get you my pretty!), a bandhani veil, a cotton lungi, and a 9-yard turquoise sari - also a rarity. Getting a 9 yard sari is rare. Getting a bright cotton, fancy checked pattern one - a style new to me, is even more rare, as there seem to be a very few, rare sources for them.
Could go on forever, rhapsodizing on the fun of sharing time occasionally with people who love and study deeply the same wierd thing you do. That the three of us - the hostess, the woman who brought the saris from Portland, OR, to here, and myself - all have compatible, but different approaches to textiles - is very neat. It's neat to not be The Sari Geek, but to be a Sari Compadre for a little while. We are all fighting the good fight -- to make a the world a more textile-rich, Indian-enthusiastic, !! shinier!! place. :)
Crazy Plan #3001: Write a book about the Sisterhood of Saris - a book about my adventures in learning about, and shopping for these lovely ornaments. Getting other people involved, meeting the unique personalities of those who share this love, and all the strange situations one gets into, being a Crazy White Woman who loves India. Hurdle #1: Become a better writers. Me speak OK English. Me could speak better.
Will write about Palio later - also very enjoyable... and busy. Sad to be not the devadasi to His Excellency. Glad to not be holding the competition, and glad to see it go to good hands, who I think will enjoy it as much as I did. ... if I loved it so much... maybe I should try be Court Scholar next year. :)
Good night.
