Sari shopping - FUN FUN FUN!!

Christelle got this idea that we should shop for sari - even tho she thought she would look like a sausage in one! I said I thought they were kind of flattering, but we didn't really know anything about it. So off we went, to the Ambience Mall - the largest mall in India, with over a kilometre of shopping on each level! (and there are 5 levels!!)
The first place we went into was a friendly choice (you are my sister - this is your store) and lots of guys standing around. No women anywhere. And thousands of sari to choose from. So we jumped right in! You can see the long counter. You point to one and they take it down, hold it just so, and fling it out and away from them so it flows out, unrolling in the air and landing gently on the long counter so you can get a good view of the 6 metres of fabric. You say, oh no I don't like that one, and they say no problem, and get out another. Pretty soon you have a thick stack on the counter. You select two or three, step to the side, and he fits you (the fun part!)
You start with arms in the air so he can wrap around your waist. When he has gone around once, he starts making pleats about the width of his hand. Lots of pleats. Then he wraps a think velcro'd elastic around your waist to hold the pleats right in the front. There is still 2 metres of fabric to go, so it wraps to the left, under your left arm, rising up under your right armpit, to cross the chest and go over the left shoulder. The result is a sort of draped grecian goddess look that is so fun! There are many variations to the basic method - different ways to go over the shoulder etc. This is a regional thing. She decided she liked red, so she tried a bunch of those. Well, Christelle looked so NOT like a sausage and it looked so fun that I wanted in! The guy (you know, my brother) told me that with my large height, sari looked very good on me :)

We have our own shirts on to try on. We figured out that a plain colour t-shirt is best so the next time we went we planned ahead.

These are the same - just different colours. That is a bit rare - most sari are one-offs - there is ONLY one, ever. You will not see another woman wearing the same one because there isn't another one. We took some self-portraits.


Then we moved on to the cream coloured ones

We had lots of fun, but didn't buy sari that day. I got mine for Mother's Day, and we had ours stitched - which is to say they are "cheaters" - sewn into a dress with just the last draping around the body left up to us. This frees us from doing the pleats and worrying that someone will step on the hem and you will be dress-less suddenly!

This is at a baby shower in the neighbourhood - we were mixing an American idea (the baby shower part) with an Indian idea (to dress up and wear sari and celebrate the soon-to-be mom). It was fun to dress up! Sadly, sari seems to look a million times better on a size two Indian, than a somewhat larger whitey! We did learn the secrets of diaper pins to hold your sari together, tho!

BTW, sari prices vary widely - from 8 or 10 dollars for a rayon one, to thousands for an elaborate bridal one. (Of course, you pay more at the mall than you do at the market.) They come in silk, cotton, crepe, rayon, georgette... and more. In every colour imaginable. Except purple - we have never seen a purple one (?). They can be solid colours, patterned, embroidered, beaded, seuined, all of the above. You wear a petticoat under-skirt thing underneath. The fabric for the blouse part is attached to one end of the sari fabric and you have the blouse stitched up (costs about 5 dollars) into a very tight, usually short top with short sleeves. We both opted for as long a top as they had fabric to make! The Indian women let their bellies show, which is not always a good thing. To have it stitched up completely (which even some Indian women do because it is so much easier) costs another 10 to 15 dollars. The saris you see us wearing in this photo are georgette fabric and cost about 50 dollars for mine and 80 for Christelle's. We will definately buy more of these awesome dresses!