Lakshmi Menon Slips Into The Meditative Shape Of The Sari

Body And Soul, Fabric And Form, Movement And Memory. Against A Goan Seascape, The Eternal Drape Is Stripped Back To Its Simplest Form, Capturing The Lyrical Quality Of Its Timeless Silhouette. Supermodel Lakshmi Menon Slips Into The Meditative Shape Of The Sari For Her Return To Vogue India

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THE SARI HOLDS OUR SECRETS

FROM FOLKLORE TO CULTURAL CONNOTATIONS, BANDANA TEWARI TRACES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEAVE AND WEARER

SARI, OR ‘STRIP OF CLOTH’ IN SANSKRIT, is more than a piece of clothing. It is the subcontinent’s collective dream of womanhood, of femininity, and a lifelong ritual of love and pleasure immersed in the shapes and drapes of our inner worlds. Mothers, whilst draping saris on their comingof-age daughters, are known to gently whisper, “We are dressing not just our bodies but also our emotions.”

The sari and the body are inseparable. In the way that water takes the shape of the container into which it is poured, the sari too becomes the very body that it is swathed in. The nature of the body, vilified by the social constructs of ‘perfect’ shape and size, ceases to matter. The sari becomes the body, the body the sari. It is the six-yard dance of our natural curves, the meandering metaphors of our lives, the contours of our thrills and the creases of our discomfort.