Learning to dress

I received an invitation to an event this weekend that called for formal or Indian dress. I thought it would be a perfect excuse to finally wear the sari that I had bought at the beginning of the year and has been laying folded in my closet since then. But how? How was I to get this three meters of fabric wrapped around my body? Wrapped so that it would not fall off, and would look *something* like what it is supposed to (I suppose perfect it too much to ask of a foreigner!). Luckily my maid Mrs. Kaur was at my house Saturday morning. I asked her to help me learn what I was doing. Thirty minutes later I was laughing in amusement, but fairly sure that I would be able to wrap myself up reasonably well that evening. To begin with she had me put on the petticoat, an integral part of the outfit as it actually holds the entire thing up, tucking the first round into the waistline, tugging all over to get it to hang straight, just barely brushing the floor. A lot more adjustment, some discussion as to how I wanted the end to drape, and she continued to even things out. Working from both sides she gathered the excess material in the front, carefully folding seven pleats into the fabric then tucking those into the front. With four adjustments to the folds over my shoulder I was starting to wonder how in the world I would ever get it put back on four hours later. Luckily she had a plan. A couple of safety pins held both sets of pleats in place, an extra one lower down would keep them from falling out until I was dressed later. Then it all came off and I tried to replicate the look. The first attempt wasn't so good! I got a couple of reminders and took it back off to try again. We didn't stop until I passed Mrs. Kaur's inspection. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but she decided it would be good enough. Then she reminded me to add a few safety pins in key spots to hold everything in place and let me take it all off. I guess she tutored me well and I got several compliments from the Indian women at our event, goodness knows I couldn't have done it without her! I can't say a sari would ever become my daily outfit, but I did feel very elegant in it, even if it was a bit like playing dress up.

sari shopping

Saturday I took off to go shopping for a sari. Little did I know it would turn into an 8 hour adventure. First stop was a little sari store where the process reminded me quite a bit of shopping for a carpet in Turkey. Having 10 people there meant they were willing to pull out a lot of different saris out for us to look at, although I'm not sure if that was good or bad. We sat in two rows facing away from each other in the center of the shop and soon enough there were saris flying through the air over our heads as they tossed them back and forth. Saris were being pulled out of clear plastic bags and draped on the platform after being held up by one of the workers. There I sat; just waiting for one that caught my eye and whose texture was appealing to my fingers. I think I only touched 3 or 4 in the 3 hours we were there (most had a bit too much bling for me) and the only one I picked up to really look at I ended up buying after having it wrapped around me to try it on. Its a dark teal with a red border and lots of little mirrors stitched around. Have to say saris aren't cheap, but then I didn't expect them to be.

After 3 hours we decide a lunch was needed and so off we went for a well deserved break. The debate then turned to should we have the cholis (the shirt that goes under the sari) made now? Most of us voted "yes" as we just wanted to get as finished as possible. The sari shop had cut the fabric off of the end of the sari for that and gave it to us, so we headed out to a tailor who specializes in making cholis. There were tons of designs on the wall, samples hanging around, and more choices then I wanted to deal with at that point. Here is where our timing for the day went a little awry. We walked in, checked what we needed to do and were told to stand in line. Okay, we can do that. This lady was in there and had a ton of cholis to be made. After watching her pull fabric after fabric from a bag we were finally told that we had to have an appointment. Aargh! Turns out making an appointment just meant putting your name on a list, but by this time everyone who came in after us already had their name down and we now had another hour to wait. We'd come so far though that we decided to persevere. Eight names got written down, and off we went in search of tea for a brief break. Just had to make sure we were back in an hour.

Luckily once we walked back up the stairs to Eve's we didn't have long to wait. Decisions just had to be made and explained well enough for the tailor to draw a sketch. What shape in the front - round or v-neck? How should the back go (this is more important as you actually see the back of the choli)? Should it tie? If so you need to step over there to that cabinet afterwards and pick out your dangle. Trim? Where should the zipper go (front or side)? Padded support or not? Gosh, I wasn't quite ready for that many choices. I let a few people go ahead of me then managed to come up with an idea. After explaining  it was time to step around the counter and get measured. I never knew you could take so many measurements for a top! Some I expected: bust size, length from shoulder, across the shoulder, around the rib cage (after all the cholis and short), arm width, down an arm....but then there were at least 5 more measurements. How deep cut in the front, how deep in the back, around the arm in three places, across the upper chest...this thing should fit quite well!

So after eight hours I found myself back home with nothing concrete to show for my day's adventure. The sari was at the store getting the fall put in. The choli being made at the tailor. I suppose I did bring home a matching colored simple petticoat, but that hardly seems like enough to show for such a day! I hope I'll be happy when I get to wear my sari for the first time, and will be sure to share pictures then.