Insights · Fashion
The five fabrics every Indian wardrobe should know
When I started designing, I thought the cut was the thing. Twenty years later I think the fabric is the thing. If the cloth is wrong, no cut will save it. If the cloth is right, the cut can be almost anything.
These are the five fabrics I would put in any new wardrobe, in roughly the order I would buy them. Not because they are the most expensive, but because they earn their place.
Banarasi silk
Woven on handlooms in Banaras for over five centuries. Real Banarasi is silk with silver-gilt zari woven directly in — not embroidered on top. It is the saree your grandmother had, and probably your great-grandmother too. Wears in beautifully. Pairs equally well with traditional jewellery for a wedding and with a clean modern haircut for a cocktail.
Kanjivaram silk
Heavier than Banarasi. Woven in Kanchipuram on traditional pit looms by three weavers per piece for the most complex sarees. The contrast pallu joined by korvai — the invisible seam — is the signature. If you only ever own one heirloom saree, this is it.
Chanderi
A silk-cotton blend woven in Madhya Pradesh. Lighter than pure silk, drapes like silk, breathes like cotton. The most wearable Indian fabric for daytime — the anarkali you would actually want to wear to a daytime mehendi in Sydney humidity.
Tussar silk
Wild silk with a textured, raw finish — woven in Bhagalpur and a few other clusters in east India. Tussar has a slight irregularity that flatlay photography never captures. It is the silk that looks best in person, always.
Georgette
The modern workhorse. Lightweight, flowy, takes embroidery beautifully without weighing down. Half the sarees and most of the anarkalis you see on the dance floor at any modern sangeet are georgette. Inexpensive at the basic end, exquisite at the top.
A note on what's missing
Cotton I haven't included separately because cotton is a category, not a fabric — chikan-worked cotton from Lucknow, jamdani cotton from Bengal, bagh-printed cotton from Madhya Pradesh — all worthy of their own essay. Maybe another week.