Before and After …

As I posted on Facebook, I got bored of my grey hair and decided to color them again. Interestingly, I had taken photographs in some of these saris when I had grey hair and then when I wore them again I had coloured my hair. So it makes for an interesting contrast :).

The first sari is an organic cotton from Dindigul. We bought it directly from the weavers at the Nagal Nagar cooperative when we visited them in June last year for ShikshaDaan. Venkatesh Narasimhan, MD of Cooptex introduced us to them and their work is just outstanding. This is an organic cotton sari and the dyes used are azo free. The body of the sari has self design all over (it has been hand woven) of rectangles (rhombus). I was told that to do this weaving the weaver has to be highly skilled and experienced. I have worn it several times and every time have got compliments for it. Here’s the body design and the Pallu.

The first time I wore it was when my hair was grey  and then I wore it again during the leadership training intervention that we did at Pithampur by which time I had coloured my hair. The neckpiece I am wearing in the picture on the right is a string of multicoloured semi-precious stones from my trusted store – Desh Maheshwari in Noida. My love affair with Khunn blouses hasn’t waned. So am wearing one with this as well.

 

This second sari is a Begumpuri that just stole my heart. I bought it from the W3 group. The weaving is just out of this world and of course its black so how can it be anything but gorgeous. I wore it first for my session at NGA HR, on International Women’s Day and my hair was grey then. I wore it a couple of times in between and then two days back I wore it for the governing council meeting at SAI.

The neckpieces in both the pics are from Desh Maheshwari. In the one on the right I am wearing a string of black onyx. In the one on the left I am wearing a string of multi coloured semi-precious stones which Jyotsna (http://www.adorjo.in) put together very nicely with a pendant. The begumpuri sari is so pretty that you feel like wearing it almost everyday :).

Please support the handloom weavers and buy atleast some handloom products. These saris are not expensive and they are actually wearable art because even if there are two saris that have the same design and have been woven on the same loom, they are different since they are handwoven.

#handloom #supporttheweavers