This Friday, August 24, Gaurang Shah will take the audience who attend his session at Lakme Fashion Week autumn/winter 2018 on a journey to the 1950s and 60s when leading women in Indian cinema flaunted woven Banarasi saris with ornate blouses. “In these decades, unlike in the 70s and 80s, women in cinema mostly wore saris even for romantic songs. It could be a lighter chiffon, but saris were worn with Banarasi brocade blouses,” he says.
The throwback to these decades is an extension of his work for the Savitri biopic, Mahanati. He had dressed up Keerthy Suresh for the titular role in kanchi and Banarasi weaves. He sourced old Banarasi saris from antique dealers for the film, “Some of these saris were 4.5 to 5 metres long; women used to drape them with a short pallu and just two to three tight pleats. These saris had intricate patterns towards the top and the pallu portions and the same designs were sparsely scattered through the body of the sari.”
Gaurang was extremely impressed with the production team for its homework but never fathomed that Mahanati would become a rage and many of his clients would ask for specific saris. “We had to put some of those saris into production. Quite a few of our looms are occupied now,” he laughs.
The new collection for Lakme Fashion Week is an extension of this romance with the 50s and 60s, but skewed towards a pan-Indian appeal. Hence the name ‘Anupama’, which isn’t region specific. Gaurang chose Banaras over Kanchi saris for the pan-Indian appeal. “Even Savitri wore several Banaras saris,” he points out.
‘Anupama’ is an ode to the era of Savitri, Meena Kumari, Nutan and Sadhana. Featured on the ramp will be around 25 saris and 15 ensembles in hues ranging from pastel pink, beige, pistachio green, lilac and sea blue to onion pink, purple and deeper tones of wine red, bottle green and peacock blue. Showing us some of the saris, Gaurang says, “We will have models creating a sort of colour block on the tamp. They will walk in nine groups, each sporting different colour tones.” Complementing the collection will be music from Hindi cinema of the 50s and 60s.
For this collection, Gaurang liaised with weavers in Banaras to recreate old motifs — the tanchoi, large floral designs, slender creepers and small paisleys. “Back then, designs were woven to create a 3D effect and weren’t flat on the sari’s surface. We made sure we got that right,” he adds.
The saris are a tad heavy but soft on the skin: “Six strands of silk tightly wound together were used on the loom unlike the current practice of using single or double threads and starching them to prevent breakage,” he explains. There’s liberal use of gold and silver zari. Organzas with a mix of silver and gold zari, handwoven chiffons (a technique that Gaurang and his team worked upon) and Chanderi silks also went into the making of ‘Anupama’ line.