WHAT IS THE SARI? The sari is a length of cloth measuring from about 4 to 8 meters by 120 centimeters. Which is draped around the entire body? Most of this fabric is pleated at the waist and then wound around to make a skirt or pair of trousers, with remaining few yards swept across half of the body, covering at least one shoulder and sometimes beiling the head. Sari is either woven by hand - there are over three million handlooms in india employing more then six million poeple- or by power looms in textile mills. The creation of both types of sari is a big business: sari production accounts for an estimated 2.5 percent of all textile production in India, and most Indian women excepting the poorest , buy both kinds. Hand-woven saris( or handlooms ' saris. As they are know) highly praised, and most womens can still recougnise the finerd etails of the good handloom weaving, although for everyday wear the usually less exund pensive mill-made saris are now commonly worn. A women's ethnicity and class or caste background usually influence her choice and pattern, and all of these will in turn be effected by social norms and found in which she lives. These differences are still noticiable today, though they are not as distinct as century or even thirty years ago. For example, in north Indian a widow is expexted to wear white, the colour of mourning, since bright color are regarded as the preogative of young merried women, with bright red being seen as the color of joy, energy and martial bliss ( which is why it is worn by brides) older married women, are expected to wear dark blues and other "dull" tones. A SARI'S DIMENSIONS The actual lenght and width of sari varies by region and by quality aa good sari made of expensive fabric, like a dense silk or fine cotton muslin, will often be both border and longer than one that is less costly; the less expensive mill-made sari worn by peasent and the urban poor are noticably short in lenght and width. Many traditional heavy cotton saris worn by tribal, peasent and low-caste working women have always been short in order to facilate movement, but among middle-class and weltheir women saris expected to sweep the floor because exposed ankles are of belonging to the laboring poor. Traditional sari demensions are also influenced by regional and community draping style. In the dravidian south, for instance, many poorer low-caste and traible women, as well as some conservative orthodox brahmins, still wear saris 7 to 9 meters(23 to 30) long that are draped in various trouser-like forms traditional to their communities. Such draping style and saris, are realy worn by today's urban middle class as they have adopted the ubiquities nivi style, which during the last century was only worn in the western deccan and some areas of Dravidian India. SARI DESIGN STUCTURE Although the sari is an untailored lenght of cloth, the fabric is highly structured and its design vocablory very sophisticated. It is divided into three areas; the longitudinal broders the end pieces; and the field. Traditionally, each ares communicated a women's social and family status, as well as her region identity, for certain colors and motif were region and community specific. Its size and elabrotion also indicated a family's wealth because added ornamentation takes more weaving time, and so adds to the sari's cost. Border usually extend the full(longitudinal)length of sari either(1) as a woven design created by contrasting supplementary-warp or weft weaving (2) through the wrap threads bieng a different color to wrap making the feild or (3) by pronting and embroidery. Most region, and even towns and villages had their own traditional distinctive borders, and in some areas, such as Bengal, different weavers in the same town specialised in specific design. Although today the width of border tends to follow fashoin rather the traditional rogation, the regional origams many border design can still be recognized. The end peice is the part of the sari that is draped over the sholder and left to hang over over the back to front. The degree of embellishmentt tradionally depends on how this is draped, as well as for what occasion it is used, because expensive saris tend to have larger and elaborate end peice then less costly, everyday ones. THE BASIC DRAPING STYLE OF SARI'S THE NIVI STYLE-: The nivi style of drping the sari is now so common among the urban middle-class Indian Women that meny foreigners do not realize that there are other ways of wearing it- whereas ther are literally dozens. Different regional, ethnic and tribal communites all have their own sari style and draping style and these can be divide into six major types. Today most sari was tied in places with a string(sometimes to a petticoat), but in the past, the upper broder of the first 90 cm(3feet) of the sari was usually knotted firmly round the waist, and the pleats and folds of colth that formed the skirt (or trousers) would have been tucked into that. THE NORTHERN STYLE:- The northern styles have skirt pleats in the front and draped around the back and over the front, so that the end piece covers the wearer breast. there are many variations on this style, with the gujrati, bihar and orison version being the most well known. the bangali drape shows elements of bothy the north and dravidian style, not suprisingly, traditionalsaris from the northern areas have large decorated end peices because they are so visiable . the age of the northern draping style is revealed by the fact that evan today in north Indain state of bihar they are called Sidha(correct, straight , good) draping style, while the nivi style is called an ultra(reverse, opposite, bad) style, even by women who never worn a sari in the sidha manner. THE DECCAN STYLE:- the deccan style include the nivi version, which has various names in the diferent region of the south west deccan where it is orinated. it uses 4.5 to 5.5 meters (15 to 18 feet) of cloth draped to create skirt with pleats in the front, while the rest is drawn from the right hip across breasts and left shoulder to hang down to back. another, once more widely didtributed type of draping style. That is also traditional to the Deccan and the parts of south indian is the kachahha, which creata the practical effect of a pair of trouser. there are many ways of tying and draping kachahha saris, each giving a different result from tight to loos around the legs and each uses a different part of cloth to being the ioften complicated draping sequences. these style are associated with Maharashtra, but the are found throught the deccan plateau(maharashtra andhra pradesh and madhya pradesh) and the south (karnataka and tamil nadu). cost silk-screened imitations, and most mordern bandhani saris are larger design and fewer ties then in the past.Bandhani saris's are traditionally worn by weilther,often urban.women for special occasion, including weddding. the most important manufacturing centers are: Jamnagar, which has a reputation for producing cloths of a very bright red resulting from the quality of local water; bhuj(kuch) where some of the finest knots are created; Ahemdabad (cenetral gujrat), one of India's major industrial textile centers where many rural craftpeople migrate for work; and jhunjhunu,sikar bikaner, jodhpur(Rajasthan). PATOLA SARI's The most time consuming and elaborate sari created in the western region is patola(prural;patola), which has intricate five color designs resist-dyed into both warpand weft threads before weaving, resulting in a compleately reversiable fablic. although they are now created in onlyt two famalies in patan(gujrat),patola are believed to have been made since at least the thirteenth century and have always had aristocratic ritulistic associations. the walls of some south indian temples, such as mattancheri(Kerala) and or padma (lotus flower).red and black is the most common color combination, as in the finely made khatriya odhnis,, but other pairs of color are found .For instance, the panetar sari is a gujrati. the bright red yellow pomcha piliya is a traditionally odhani worn by Rajasthani and Haryana groups such as the jat, and the red and yellow medallion saris have also existed science atleast the ninteenth century. saris and odhanis with a single ground color and multicoloured die spots are common among certain ethic gropus. single color saris and odhanis with white spots are common. The most famous is a gujrati sari called gharchola. it is usually red but occasionally green,divided into a netwok of squares created by rows of white tie-dyed spot or woven bands of zari. In rajasthan , a type of bandhani created by tying entire length of cloth rather than tiny section produces diagonal strips of bright color called lahariya(waves). these saris were traditionally given as gift during the festival of holi and teej. EMBROIDERED SARI The ewstern region also has a rich embroiery (Bharat) tradition much of which is created by ethnic groups like rabari and sodha rajputts who do not wear sari and whose work has not yet been transfered to modern 'designer sari . sari with metallic thread embroidery are commoly found in the west ,although most of this type of work is created throuhout northen India originally associated with wealthy (often aristocratic) Muslim communities, metallic embroidered saris are frequently worn by Rajputs , Lohana (sindhi traders), MARWARIS (Rajasthani traders),and other wealthier often urban, woman for wedding and special occasions.