Style check: Gen Z rewriting saree story
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Bengaluru: From Cannes to skateboards, sarees are making a comeback. And Gen Z, like everything else they do, are making them unique too. There is a new category of influencers making sarees cool again.Larissa D'sa, a travel and lifestyle influencer, with 824,000 followers on Instagram is wearing a kasavu saree with sneakers and skateboarding. Dolly Jain, with nearly two million followers on Instagram, is teaching people how to drape a saree.Jain says, 'If you see the numbers also, sarees have made a huge comeback. You can't tell Gen Z to get a blouse and a petticoat to tie a saree. You have to give them ideas like how to drape a saree on denims, palazzos, or straight pants. And let's get those crop tops to style it with or style the saree like a gown. These drapes were introduced for Gen Zs to fall in love with sarees.'And then there are Indians settled abroad like Natasha Thasan, a 20-something saree influencer with nearly 824,000 followers on TikTok and 483,000 followers on Instagram, making drape therapy cool and sarees even cooler.What is it about the humble six yards that women, and even men from the LGBTQIA community, are getting drawn towards? During the 86th Cannes Film Festival held this May, Alia Bhatt in her Gucci saree, broke the internet, as Gen Z calls it.A quick look at Bhatt's outfit at the closing ceremony of the French festival will probably make you wonder, 'what is making the Italian luxury fashion house call it a saree?', but nonetheless, saree it was called in every press coverage. Aishwarya Rai, the legacy Indian name always associated with Cannes, in a quintessential ivory Banarasi, designed by Manish Malhotra, was all over Instagram, and fashion pages for days following the Cannes. And it's not just influencers who are capitalising on the rise of sarees, brands catering to both modern and traditional sarees concur the sentiment of sarees coming back.Parama Ghosh, founder of Kolkata-based designer saree brand Parama Calcutta, says, 'We are seeing a sudden rise in the age group of 18-25-year-olds buying our sarees. Earlier, when we used to target our audience, it would generally be for the consumers 25 years and above, as our average pricing is Rs 2,500 and above.''But now, suddenly, I see that 18-25 years are buying sarees. What the newage influencers are doing is making sarees easy to wear, and people are not shying away from the saree anymore. They are teaching how to drape a saree with playfulness,' said Ghosh.Mumbai-based Suta sarees founders Sujata and Taniya Biswas say, 'We wanted our consumers to let go of that fear that sarees are difficult to wear. We wanted to change that for the younger generations. Gen Z currently is our third biggest age group in terms of consumers, but most importantly, they are the ones who introduce the older generation to our brand, as they are the ones following us on social media.' Focussed on everyday wear sarees, Suta sarees are a common sighting across Bollywood movies. The company with nearly Rs 76 crore of revenue is on an exclusive brand outlet expansion mode currently.The Biswas sisters say, 'What is working with sarees and Gen Z is that both are very fluid. There is no typical style or character the younger generation wants to align to, and for experimenting. They want their Indianness to shine through in their own way.'Aparna Thyagarajan, co-founder of Shobitam Inc, a Chennai-based saree brand that primarily caters to international markets, says, 'We started selling sarees on Etsy. And we received our first order from France, from a non-Indian consumer. Currently, from our Shobitam international website, US, UK, Australia, Canada and Singapore are our top five markets.'The company with nearly Rs 38 crore of annual revenue rate of FY26, as claimed by Thyagarajan, has 90% of its revenue coming from the international markets, with the US contributing nearly 65% of that. Sarees are no longer limited only to weddings, or traditional events. In fact, they are not even limited to grace, and the super feminine.Thanks to the influencers and Gen Z's drape therapy, sarees are making a comeback in a manner which is fluid, homegrown and non-traditional, combining traditions with play.
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