Sarees as a FASHION STATEMENT

Sarees as a FASHION STATEMENT

While Sudhir Mishra has taken a decision to move on to films with a flair for comedy, he has done a yeomen service to the cause of sarees by setting them once again as a important ingredient in the fashion accessory. KHOYA KHOYA CHAND may not have been able to make a commercial success but the conscious effort on the part of Sudhir Mishra to adorn Soha Ali most of the times in a saree, presumably under the assumption that it was related to a period when sarees were a fashion statement has brought sarees back into the mainstream. In the zeal to project a western and liberated worldview, it was very difficult to find a heroine adorning a saree in a scene, inspite of the fact that the grace and beauty that saree personifies on an actor is unattainable in a comparable manner in any other outfit. If one views the performance of Chitrangda Singh in Sudhir Mishra's earlier film, YEH WOH MANZIL TO NAHIN, it would become clear, as the mark that she left on the audience through the film has saree also as a major contributing factor as the her sensual oomph was projected in a very profound manner through the sarees.

The effect and the statement that sarees make was clearly evident in the recently held Filmfare Awards Function 2007, where the ladies who were adorned in sarees like Karishma Kapoor, Rekha, and Kareena Kapoor etc., were standing out from the crowd, and it was more so discernable in the case of Kareena who had displayed various outfits during the programme, but the grace that she exuded in a saree was unmatched from any dress. This is what Khushwant Singh had eloquently commented when he had said that no dress can match the charm and beauty of a woman as that can be done when she wears a saree.

The rain dance sequences of the Hindi film industry got a cult status because of the saree as an adornment in the background, right from the time Raj Kapoor first experimented with it from AWAARA to MERA NAAM JOKER and RAM TERI GANGA MAILI. The sensuousness that a Zeenat Aman had exuded in a saree in ROTI KAPDA AUR MAKAAN was not found expressed in the same manner when she had done it through the western outfits. A comparative study in contrast was in QURBAANI where in " Aap Jais Koi… Zeenat was in a western outfit while in " Laila Main Laila " for the same film she was in a saree, and it was the saree that won hands down. Sri Devi never looked as sensuous as she did in MR. INDIA in the song ' " Kaate Nahin Katte Din ye Raat", when it is compared with " Na jaane Kahan se aayee hai" in CHAALBAAZ where Sridevi was in a western outfit. Aishwarya Rai was more graciously sensuous in a saree in HUM DIL DE CHUKE SANAM then in other dresses that she adorned in the film.

It is time, that as the female actors are carving out their place in the sun in an effective manner, they could think about using saree as the channel vehicle to do so. Sarees after all accentuates the beauty in a sensual manner subtly emphasizing the sexuality but underplaying it and thereby adds mystique to the persona.