The UK’s first major exhibition celebrating the contemporary sari opens at London’s Design Museum today.
Curated by the museum’s Head of Curatorial, Priya Khanchandani, The Offbeat Sari will unravel its numerous forms, demonstrating the sari as a metaphor for the layered and complex definitions of India today.
It brings together over 90 examples of the finest saris of our time from designers, wearers and craftspeople in India, including the first UK display of the first sari ever worn to the Met Gala.
In recent years, the sari has been reinvented. Designers are experimenting with hybrid forms such as sari gowns and dresses, pre-draped saris and innovative materials such as steel. Young people in cities who used to associate the sari with dressing up can now be found wearing saris and sneakers on their commutes to work. Individuals are wearing the sari as an expression of resistance to social norms and activists are embodying it as an object of protest.
Today, the sari in urban India manifests as a site for design innovation, an expression of identity, and a crafted object carrying layers of cultural meanings.
The exhibition will unravel the sari as a metaphor for the complex definitions of India today through the lens of design innovation, identity expression and resistance.
Pre-book tickets here. The exhibition runs through to September 17 2023.
