Sari's future in doubt as Indian middle class taste changes

India Letter: The sari, once the favoured garment of most Indian women, is in peril in urban areas, steadily relegated to being worn mostly on festive and formal occasions.

The billowing six yards of rectangular woven cloth, available in a rich variety of textures, designs and colours, has been ousted by the more practical and convenient-to-wear shalwar and kameez- baggy trousers and long shirt - and by Western garments such as pantaloons, jeans and skirts.

"Saris are relatively cumbersome to wear, difficult to maintain and expensive to buy," textile designer Rita Paul said. The shalwar-kameez, trousers and jeans, are far easier on all counts, she admitted.

Most urban Indian women also believe that the sari is not "cool" or in keeping with their fast pace of life in the quick-changing globalised environment, and they are opting instead for local and Western designer outfits, which have flooded the market.

"Even though it looks elegant, the sari involves a lot of paraphernalia that makes it an altogether impractical garment in today's conditions," college lecturer Neel Kamal Puri said. The garment was losing out because it slowed down movement and was not ready-to-wear like the alternatives on offer, she said.

The sari requires a blouse to match, usually tailored to perfection in a range of fetching, sometimes risqué styles propagated by designers.

It also requires petticoats, over which the sari is tied.

In addition, cotton saris, which are favoured over the heavier silk varieties during most of the year, can only be worn once, after which they need to be starched and ironed.

The shalwar, shirt and trousers, on the other hand, can not only be worn many more times without much maintenance but, unlike saris, their styles also keep changing, giving women a wider choice.

"The growth of the middle class and its purchasing power may be making for bigger wardrobes, but the composition of these wardrobes is changing," well-known columnist H.Y. Sharda Parsad said.

"Historically, we find that when incomes grow there is a certain decline in taste," he said ruefully, adding that the future of the sari could no longer be taken for granted.

Over the centuries, India's many regions produced their own distinctive saris in silk and cotton on looms, not only for formal wear but also for everyday attire. All were draped in different ways unique to each of the regions and provinces.

But the high cost of production and increased competition from more practical clothing and synthetic materials has driven over 10 million traditional sari weavers out of business.

The Varanasi silk industry in eastern India, for instance, which produced exquisite saris eulogised in ancient Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and savoured even by the Mughal court in the 16th and 17th centuries, has been in decline since the mid-1990s due to the importation of cheap silk yarn from China.

Chinese traders compete even against traditional Varanasi handloom silk saris by hiring local weavers from the city and producing cheaper varieties, significantly depressing the indigenous market and forcing many looms to shut down.

In nearby Orissa state, which is known for its fine Sambhalpur cotton saris, the lack of demand has put hundreds of traditional weavers into indigence and forced them to look for other work.

Activists fear that if these traditional skills, which were painstakingly accumulated over centuries, are not resurrected soon, they may be lost forever.

Many Indian women agree that the sari remains a "sexy, enchanting and empowering" garment.

"There is an allure to a woman in a sari that no other garment can match," said socialite Roshin Varghese, who lives in Bangalore in southern India.

Female politicians such as Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress Party, favour saris too, often making a fashion statement which others try and emulate.

Sonia Gandhi's simple yet stylish saris, like those of her late prime minister mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, are often the subject of media discussion and analysis.

The sari, meanwhile, is finding acceptability in unlikely places.

In neighbouring Pakistan, although long rejected as an "Indian" item of clothing and, by implication, the "enemy's garment", the sari is increasing in popularity and is becoming more visible on the streets and at weddings and banquets.

"Many Pakistani women often travel to India on sari shopping sprees as they [saris] have become a fashion statement across Pakistan today," said Nigar Brohi, from the southern port city of Karachi. "More and more Pakistani women now tend to look upon the sari as haute couture," she added.