🇮🇳 The sarees of India
127 sarees from India, best known first, across 80 centres and states.
The sari is an unstitched length of woven cloth draped over the body, worn across India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan. Its history runs back to ancient drapery in the northwest of the subcontinent, and it shares roots with earlier pieces like the stanapatta, uttariya and antariya.
- A sari measures 4.5 to 9 yards long and 24 to 47 inches wide.
- Over 80 drapes are recorded; historian Rta Kapur Chishti found 108 across 14 states.
- Cotton was cultivated and woven in the subcontinent around the 5th millennium BCE.
- Indigo, lac, red madder and turmeric were ancient dyes, still in use today.
- Red is the most favoured colour for a Hindu wedding sari.
Sarees in India
The sari is a single piece of unstitched cloth. It can run from about four and a half to nine yards long and roughly two to four feet wide. One end is tucked at the waist and the other rests on a shoulder like a stole, often leaving the midriff bare. The word comes from shatika, a Sanskrit term for a strip of cloth. Older texts describe a set of three pieces: a chest band, a shoulder veil and a wrap for the lower body. These grew into the modern choli, dupatta and skirt. The garment is everyday and formal wear across the region, and it sits beside related draped cloth in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Weaves and fabrics
Cotton was grown and woven in the subcontinent from around the fifth millennium BCE, and silk from about 2450 to 2000 BCE. Handloom saris are made in silk and cotton. Named traditions include brocade silks such as Banarasi, Kanchipuram, Gadwal, Paithani, Mysore, Chanderi and Maheshwari, and lighter cloths like jamdani, tant, Mangalagiri, Ilkal and tussar. Ikat and tie-dye appear too. Polyester, georgette and charmeuse are now common as well.
How it is worn
More than eighty drapes have been recorded, and one scholar, Rta Kapur Chishti, documented a hundred and eight across fourteen states. The nivi style is the most seen today: cloth wrapped at the waist, pleats in front, the loose end, or pallu, over one shoulder. Related family styles include kaccha or nauvari, where pleats pass between the legs, and sidha pallu, worn by women in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, with the end brought forward. Bengali wear folds in a single box pleat. In Nepal, a Newari drape ties the pallu at the waist.
Dyeing, printing and embroidery
Dyeing is old here. Indigo, lac, red madder and turmeric were used in ancient times and are still worked with. Tie-dye and block-print saris include bandhani, leheria, bagru, ajrakh, sungudi, dabu, bagh and kalamkari. Embroidery covers gota patti for formal wear, plus mochi, pakko, kharak, suf, kathi, phulkari and gamthi. In the south the choli is called ravike and ties at the front; kasuti embroidery decorates it.
Weaving centres
Many saris are known by the place or style they come from. Silk brocades include Banarasi, Kanchipuram, Gadwal, Paithani, Mysore, Uppada, Chanderi, Maheshwari and Narayanpet. Ikat and cotton saris include Patola, Pochampally, Bomkai, Khandua, Sambalpuri, Berhampuri, Bargarh, Jamdani, Tant, Mangalagiri, Guntur, Tussar, Ilkal, Kotpad and Manipuri. Kerala keeps a two-piece mundum neryathum. Kashmir took the choli from the Deccan by royal order.
Weddings, festivals and daily wear
Red is the favourite colour for a wedding sari, and it is the traditional bridal choice at Hindu weddings. Handloom silks, brocades, tie-dye and block prints serve festive and formal days. Ikat and cotton saris are worn for both festival and everyday use, while tie-dyed and printed cloth was favoured in the monsoon. A married woman may draw the loose end over her head as a ghoonghat, still seen in Hindi-speaking areas.
The saree today
The sari stays fashionable in the subcontinent and counts as formal dress in several countries of the region. Newer fabrics such as polyester, georgette and charmeuse are widely used. Since 2017 a non-profit project, the Sari Series, has gathered short films showing more than eighty regional drapes, keeping that variety visible.
The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "Sari", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. EveryPallu rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
Weaving centres and states of India
🇮🇳 IndiaBanarasi sari
Fine silk sari from Varanasi, patterned with zari and woven on foot-powered loomsSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaThirubuvanam silk sari
A Thanjavur district silk sari with a wide zari border and matching palluSilk · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaGota patti
An appliqué embroidery from Rajasthan that stitches shiny ribbon into patterns on clothAppliqué · Embroidery
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreAgrun
A shuttle-woven Hajong shawl with big, symmetrical brocaded patternsSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaKimkhwab
A silk brocade woven with gold and silver yarns, once called cloth of goldSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaGarad sariগরদ শাড়ি
A fine silk handloom sari from Murshidabad and Birbhum in West BengalSilk · Zari work · Brocade
🇮🇳 India and 3 moreDupattaदुपट्टा / دوپٹہ
A long scarf-like wrap worn across South Asia with skirts or tunicsSilk · Tie-dye · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaIlkal sari
A Karnataka sari with a cotton body and a loop-joined silk palluCotton · Embroidery · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaMundum neriyathumമുണ്ട് നേരിയത്
Kerala's two-piece cotton wrap: a lower mundu and an upper neriyathuCotton · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaLanga voniలంగా వోణి
A South Indian half sari: a string-tied skirt and a short diagonal upper clothSilk · Embroidery · Mirror work
🇮🇳 IndiaBanarasi sari
A heavy silk brocade saree woven with gold and silver zari in VaranasiSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaPaithani
A handwoven silk sari from Maharashtra with zari borders and a peacock palluSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaKanchipuram sari
A silk sari from Kanchipuram with a separate contrast border locked onto the bodySilk · Zari work · Temple border
🇮🇳 IndiaKovai Cora cotton
A handwoven cotton-silk saree from the Coimbatore region of Tamil NaduCotton · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaMangalagiri sari
A cotton sari from Mangalagiri with a zari border and a plain bodyCotton · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaMurshidabad silkমুর্শিদাবাদী রেশম
A fine, light mulberry silk from Murshidabad district, West Bengal, woven mainly into sarisSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaShalu
A sari from Varanasi that joins Paithani and Banarasi fabricsSilk · Zari work
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreKhes
A thick hand-woven cotton blanket cloth from Punjab, woven in pairs and joinedCotton · Checks and stripes · Zari work
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreAbrawan
A fine muslin from the Indian subcontinent, named for water in motionCotton · Zari work
🇨🇳 China and 5 moreBrocade
A decorative shuttle-woven cloth with an extra weft, used for Banarasi saris.Silk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaKhara Dupattaکھڑا دوپٹہ
A six-yard embroidered net veil draped over a wedding ensemble in HyderabadNet · Embroidery · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaSurat zari
Metal threads from Surat district for patterns in silk fabricsSilk · Zari work · Embroidery
🇮🇳 IndiaArani silk saree
A silk saree woven in Arani, Tamil Nadu, and noted for its zari thread workSilk · Zari work · Block print
🇮🇳 IndiaKorial sariকোরিয়াল শাড়ি
A handwoven Bengal silk sari with a red border and fine designs on the anchalSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaChendamangalam saree
A hand-woven Kerala cotton sari with a dark tamarind-leaf line at its edgeCotton · Zari work · Checks and stripes
🇮🇷 Iran and 4 moreZardoziزردوزی
Heavy gold and silver metal embroidery on silk, satin or velvet, from Iran to IndiaSilk · Embroidery · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaBerhampur Patta
A silk saree from Brahmapur, Odisha, with a zari border in a temple (phoda) designSilk · Zari work · Temple border
🇮🇳 IndiaKasavu
A Kerala handloom cloth with fine gold or silver border lines on white cottonCotton · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaDharmavaram silk sari
A handwoven Andhra silk sari in mulberry silk and zari, made only on pit loomsSilk · Zari work · Tie-dye
🇮🇳 India and 1 moreHandloom sari
Saris woven by hand on village looms in India and BangladeshSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaUppada Jamdani sari
A light handwoven silk sari from Uppada, Andhra Pradesh, with motifs on both facesSilk · Jamdani · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaGadwal sari
A handwoven sari from Telangana with a cotton body, silk border and zari palluCotton · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaChanderi sari
A fine silk or cotton sari woven in Chanderi, Madhya Pradesh, with zari motifsSilk · Brocade · Zari work
🇮🇳 IndiaMaheshwari saree
A handloom saree woven in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh, in cotton, silk and zariCotton · Zari work
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Chanderi sari: India Untravelled, CC BY 2.0, source
- Rajshahi silk: Bongan, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Mundum neriyathum: L. Anantha Krishna Iyer (Diwan Bahadur), Public domain, source
- Dharmavaram silk sari: Ch Maheswara Raju, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Gota patti: User:आशीष भटनागर, Public domain, source
- Khara Dupatta: Kinshuk Sunil, CC BY 2.0, source
- Kanchipuram sari: McKay Savage, CC BY 2.0, source
- Chendamangalam saree: Malluchronicle, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Banarasi sari: Ekabhishek, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Shalu: Sreekumar K. S., CC BY 2.0, source
- Ilkal sari: T B Dinesh, CC0, source
- Handloom sari: P.K.Niyogi, Public domain, source
- Paithani: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Surat zari: Hiart, CC0, source
- Brocade: After James Lehman (England, circa 1688-1745), Public domain, source
- Arani silk saree: Balu 606902, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Langa voni: Kannadiga, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Khes: RAJIVVASUDEV, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Zardozi: Zarood, CC BY-SA 3.0, source