Remake: Sari to Lehenga

I've always been interested in India and Indian things. I remember reading guide books about living in India as a teenager and always dreamed of going there. One of the things that excited me most about India was the clothing and the fabrics that they use. Indian clothes have so much colour and use such interesting decorative features from embroidery to sequins, beads and metallic threads.

I coincidentally married an Indian man and we travelled to India in the year after our wedding. Though I did buy some Indian clothing while we were there, I didn't buy a sari. Some years later, my parents went to Bangladesh for a couple weeks and brought back this beautiful pink and black sari. 

The sari features gold thread throughout the design which, though beautiful, makes it quite stiff. The black cotton is also heavily starched and adds to the general stiffness. Wearing a sari gracefully is an art that seems to belong mostly to Indian women. While I do know how to drape the sari, the effect is not quite as neat and graceful as might be achieved by someone with more practice. After some frustrating attempts to tame the sari and wear it properly, I started playing with the fabric to see if I could make it into something a bit more familiar without losing the general sari look. In my researching I came across the Indian outfit called Lehenga. It is essentially a long skirt with a short blouse and and long shawl that can be draped in any number of styles. This seemed the best way to make use of the sari fabric.

I spent a long time pleating up the less decorative end of the sari to create inverted pleats that drew the fabric in to fit neatly around my waist and gave optimum fullness to the skirt while leaving enough for the shawl. I wanted to preserve as much of the integrity of the fabric as I could so I made only one cut in the fabric to divide the skirt from the shawl. In this way if I ever decide I want it as a sari again, I can simply unpick my seams and re-attach the shawl to the rest of the skirt. I didn't overlock my seams or make any other permanent cuts. I used an invisible zipper in the side of the skirt and made a drawstring casing at the waist so that I can pull the skirt in nice and tight. The lehenga blouse is the original sari blouse that my mum made to go with the sari with no alterations. It is made long to cover more of my very white midriff. I simply hemmed the cut edge of the shawl and my new lehenga set was ready to go.

In the following images you can see the shawl draped to make the lehenga set look like a sari. It is tucked in at the back of the skirt, draped around to the front and worn up over the left shoulder in the same manner as a sari. To make the shawl stay in place it can be pinned at the shoulder and at the waist. In the second set of images you can see the shawl worn in a way that displays the decorative end of the sari by wearing it over the front of the shoulder. I prefer wearing the shawl so that it looks more like a traditional sari as it covers my tummy better. It is definitely easier for the unpractised sari wearer to pull off a more graceful look in a lehenga!

I had hoped to wear my modified sari to my Indian themed birthday party, but I found out that I was pregnant soon after I had finished modifying it and was unable to fit the skirt or blouse when my birthday came around. Another time will have to suffice!