Sari, Not Sorry

             After the stress of college applications subsided last fall, I began to worry about the real conundrum of senior year: the prom dress. I did not know exactly what I wanted in a dress, but I knew that I wanted to stand out and be different. This was a great concept in theory, but hard to pull off when almost every girl at school is shopping at the same place. I was sitting at home watching Bride & Prejudice, Bollywood’s take on Pride & Prejudice, when I came up with the idea of wearing a sari. A sari is a traditional garment worn by Indian women consisting of one piece of fabric wrapped around the waist then slung over a shoulder (at least that is how I wore it!).  My mom and I had to drive over an hour away to find a place that sold them, but in the end I got a sari custom tailored for less money than I would have spent on a typical long prom dress. The reactions of my friends and their parents at prom pictures were priceless. My goal of standing out in a sea of sequins and frills was accomplished. Instead of subscribing to American cultural norms, I opted to look to a foreign culture for a refreshing change in the world of prom dresses.

                                                      With my prom date while wearing my sari!

    The globalization of fashion is enabling an exchange of traditions and ideas from East to

West and back again. The sari is not yet a mainstream fashion trend in America, but with

promotion from celebrities, designs by distinguished fashion houses, and some Western tweaks,

they could very well be the next craze. At her first concert in India, Lady Gaga wore a short,

sparkly sari-esque outfit with fishnet tights and leather boots, mixing her New York street style

with that of traditional India. Reputable luxury brands such as Prada and Tods have used India as

inspiration in their clothing and accessory collections. The French company Hermès, famous for

its classic accessories, even branched out so much as to create a limited edition line of saris that,

though priced in a way that will prevent the saris from crossing economic classes, showcase the

breach between East and West. The fact that such prominent Western labels and figures are

adjusting their iconic products and personas to incorporate a fundamental aspect of Indian

culture highlights the heart of globalization.

                                                                     Lady Gaga in her sari (not as pretty as mine!)

Western fashion designers are not the only ones fusing the two sides of the world in the form of a sari. Designers in India such as Gurav Gupta, Tarun Tahiliani, and Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja of Shivan & Narresh are revitalizing the face of saris. These young Indian designers are eschewing traditional sari fabrics and patterns in favor of a more modern, trendy look. Tahiliani is the creator of Lady Gaga’s risqué, short sari, fostering a link between customary Indian culture and global popular culture. Shivan & Narresh are pioneering a sari made of Lycra, called a “bikini” sari, an adaptation that caters to accentuating the better features of the womanly figure and hiding those that women are typically more insecure about. Gupta is completely revolutionizing the sari, not only using contemporary prints and brazen colors, but also altering intrinsic features of the sari such as the location of pleats and replacing the petticoat with loose pants. This shift from a custom way of dressing dating back thousands of years exemplifies the way in which globalization can inspire progressive, creative changes while still retaining kernels of tradition.

                                                           Bikini saris from Shivan & Narresh

The connotations of globalization often evoke images of Western countries, specifically America, imposing McDonaldization on the rest of the world. While it is true that American companies such as McDonalds and Starbucks can be found around the globe from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Invercargill in New Zealand, it is wrong to generalize the United States as a culture leech which only introduces its own traditions and returns home to bask in the Americana of baseball, apple pie and bald eagles. As evidenced in the adoption of the sari and other aspects of Indian fashion by noteworthy Western designers and both famous Americans like Gaga and normal Americans like me, globalization is a two- way street. Because we live in a global culture, ideas can be taken from one area of the world and applied in another. In a way, that globalization applies values from and facets of unique traditions from around the world promotes the endurance of culture rather than the eradication of it.