The Offbeat Sari: Indian Fashion Unravelled

In India today, a new generation of designers, wearers and craftspeople are re-energising the sari, translating its heritage for a diverse, contemporary world. Visionary designers across the nation’s burgeoning cities are playing with drapes, experimental techniques and inventive materials.This transformation is empowering women and people of non-conforming identities who are re-writing the language of everyday fashion, wearing the sari in novel ways that unravel conventional forms of expression. This book, published in tandem with The Offbeat Sari exhibition, brings together essays and interviews with designers who are working at the forefront of Indian fashion – from couturiers like Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Amit Aggarwal, to craft pioneers like Abraham & Thakore. Placing the sari’s leading creators in dialogue with writers, experts and advocates, this book reflects on how creative ingenuity is expanding the possibilities of contemporary dress across India, revealing some of the radically offbeat ways in which the sari has become a site for renewed innovation over the past decade.