The Vintage Sari Project

 

If you don't have the time to read through, here's how The Vintage Sari Project works. 

Send us an email on enquiries@thelittleblackbow.com with images of the saris you want to up cycle in to lehengas. We can discuss ideas and you can ship your sari to us once we've finalised your design and we'll turn it in to a collector's piece for you. The process of design and details will be a lengthy and an immersive one but we'll do our best to make it as easy for you as possible. 

 

The Story. 

While my sister and I never felt the shadow of patriarchy in our family, my mother did. She carried out her own rebellions, small and huge in many ways. No one was to curb our enthusiasm, opinions or education. While she disciplined us on etiquette and behaviour, I always had this strange feeling that she secretly found joy whenever I broke a rule. I found myself so often confused and wondered if she set rules for me so I could break them.

She taught me self-love, independence, responsibility and taking each one of your challenges and turning them into victories. She encouraged my ferocity and my passion. She would have disciplined ambition and feminism into me if I didn’t have so much of it already. But mostly she gave me the gift of her patience, even when she didn’t understand my paths.

I don’t remember exactly when we started pillaging through the treasures saved for us, lovingly wrapped in muslin and protected by lavender and sage pouches, but I think the idea was there. Could I turn these saris my ma no longer wanted and save some of the memories that meant so much to her and I?

With The Vintage Sari Project we’re taking the old in all its beauty, value and meaning and adding a new perspective to it. We are trying to create the bond of life long lessons and our interpretations of them, of old world charm and strong rebellious lines. We want to turn hand woven treasures into relevant and contemporary statements, exactly how old and new worlds exist together.

Most importantly we’ve figured out a way of doing this so that the saris can retain and revert to their original six-yard form. It is an idea and people are free to just borrow it, but they can also send us the saris so they’re handled with all the extra love and care that vintage saris need.

Each sari sent to us will be turned into a high fashion, contemporary, bespoke lehenga for it’s sender that’ll retain all it’s hand woven beauty.

When you rescue something old and loved and turn it into something with more value and relevance for the present it is called up cycling. We didn’t know the term when we started but the idea of preserving memories feels a bit like magic.