How Vidhi, a new collection of saris, reinterprets Kerala's traditional weave for lawyers

Kasavu is the traditional off-white sari worn in Kerala and the mainstay produced by the handloom weaving clusters in its villages. Kasavu saris are traditionally bought in the festive season of April and August and worn during the Onam harvest festival. With COVID-19 lockdowns (and hence, no celebrations) and floods in the years prior, the women weavers of the region have suffered terrible losses and been stuck with old inventory. This new line of monochrome saris and textiles were designed to have longevity, incur repeat buying and appeal to a broader demographic beyond the state where they’re produced. 

“We don’t want people to buy handloom from Kerala as charity,” says Ramesh Menon, founder of Save The Loom. “We’ve reimagined the handwoven fabrics to make them relevant to contemporary consumers and elevate them to the status of specialty, handcrafted products that they are.”

This line of thought is what gave birth to Vidhi. Menon didn't train at NID but strongly believes in its rhetoric that the purpose of good design is problem solving. He approached the collection with this principle and soon began to see the possibilities. Lawyers’ and judges’ attire hasn’t really been contemporised since the 18th century. In India, inspired by British courts, the uniform is sarees or salwar kurtas in black, white or shades of grey. Numerous layers get added on to this clothing; first a jacket, then the formal gown and additionally for women, a separate collar and band (as sari blouses don’t have a collar). 

“Our problem was how to make the sari lighter and appealing to a young lawyer who doesn’t want to wear the heavily-starched saris that her grandmother wore which balloon up after a few hours of wear,” says Menon.

There were many factors to consider. First, courtrooms could be stuffy, especially in India’s hot climate. Lawyers put in 12 to 14 hours of work a day and then met up with friends post-work. They didn’t have the time or bandwidth to regularly maintain the clothing and only got the chance to dry clean their gowns when courts were on vacation. The fine cotton typically used to weave kasavu has an 80 by 80 count, which is too sheer and fine to weave and drape without starching.

So the clusters began to experiment with finer counts resulting in more yarns per inch, which gave the saris a more luxurious feel. They researched textile history and decided to take inspiration from mushru silk, a fabric developed especially for Mughal royals. It had a cotton base to absorb sweat and a silk exterior for sheen and luxury. “This is essentially the principle behind Nike’s Dri-FIT clothing too which dries the interior quicker than other fabrics,” explains Menon. “To our advantage, anything hand-woven has a gap between two threads by virtue of human labour and so the textile is breathable. Normally in towels they use weaves like honeycomb, which increases absorption rate as there is more yarn which we wished to achieve in plain weave without the textile being coarse.”

They were able to weave cotton which has these very properties and thus create apt workwear for lawyers putting in long hours and sweltering in the heat. The soft fall of the saris from the Vidhi collection is nothing like the antiquated starched ones worn by their predecessors. They’ve also incorporated some very cool design elements that make these saris appeal to all women, not just lawyers.

The striking monochrome palette is combined with a contemporary aesthetic like half-and-half saris, patterned blouses and geometric accents. Some saris are reversible with dual pallus so you don't need to run home to change if you’re meeting a friend post work. Others have design elements like horizontal stripes that are only visible once you take off the court gown and so can be worn in the evenings as well.

Each sari comes with a handwritten tag which tells you a little bit about the women who wove it and the origin of the product. These garments have also been named after India’s incredible but largely ignored women legal luminaries. A minimum of 12-15 hands have touched the product before it comes to you from processing the yarn, weaving, washing and tagging. After creating the product, it was sent to lawyers to wear and their feedback was further incorporated to make them truly worthwhile products.

The collection launched on May 4, 2021, which is the 116th birth anniversary of Justice Anna Chandy, the first woman advocate of India. The new line is also dedicated to the organisation’s founding patron Late Justice KK Usha, the first female chief justice of Kerala who had a deep passion for handloom.

Also read:

Tracing the rich history of Kerala’s traditional white and gold kasavu saris

10 times Indian celebrities made us fall in love with handloom saris

3 experts on what the Indian handloom industry needs right now