According to the Oxford dictionary, a sari, or saree (don’t worry, we’ll get to that later), is:
A garment consisting of a length of cotton or silk elaborately draped around the body, traditionally worn by women from South Asia.
Whereas a fashion-forward fondness of sarees is shared across South Asia, even having been reflected in western culture of late, the sari is popular, in fact, ubiquitous in India. It can be worn as a sari dress, a sari wrap skirt, or in its most elegant form, as a traditional Indian wedding saree. In fact, there are more than 80 ways to style a sari, and if that wasn’t enough, did you know that there are more than 100 types of sari fabric in India alone?..
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According to the Oxford dictionary, a sari, or saree (don’t worry, we’ll get to that later), is:
A garment consisting of a length of cotton or silk elaborately draped around the body, traditionally worn by women from South Asia.
Whereas a fashion-forward fondness of sarees is shared across South Asia, even having been reflected in western culture of late, the sari is popular, in fact, ubiquitous in India. It can be worn as a sari dress, a sari wrap skirt, or in its most elegant form, as a traditional Indian wedding saree. In fact, there are more than 80 ways to style a sari, and if that wasn’t enough, did you know that there are more than 100 types of sari fabric in India alone? Historically, more colorful designs with more detailed embroidery are indicative of a higher economic and social status. While silk is the most coveted and costly, woven cotton was the original sari fabric, and more recently synthetic blends like polyester have become popularized as a result of their being comparatively inexpensive. As this sari style of dress transcends physical borders, cultural boundaries, and a multitude of fabrics, we are going to focus on the Indian saree, specifically the silk Indian sari, for the remainder of this post.
Where does sari silk come from?
As you may already know, silk is an extremely delicate and luxurious textile that is produced by a industrious insect called a silkworm and then spun into silk fabric. There are only four types of silkworms, otherwise known as “bombyx mori,” in the world of which India has all four; mugi, eri, tasar, & mulberry. What do silkworms eat? Silkworms are even pickier than pandas and eat only mulberry leaves. In fact, if their diet varies at all they will die, and mulberry is hard to come by in the colder months. It is thanks to silkworms that India has Chandari silk saris, Banarasi silk saris, Assam silk sarees, and Sambalpuri silk sarees amongst many others, however, the popularization of recycled sari silk and synthetic saris is likely thanks to the picky eating habits of the silkworm.
What is recycled sari silk?
As we already know, the picky silkworm munches on mulberry leaves, and the result is a beautiful, laborious fabric that is worth its weight in style, and for that reason, is often recycled. Recycled sari silk is upcycled, recycled, or repurposed from sari material using either leftover off cuts from the manufacture of saris, or from repurposing the silk fabric from saris that are no longer desired. The recycled sari is broken down into lengths of cloth, and then sewn or re-spun to create contiguous pieces of fabric, or rolled into lengths of recycled silk yarn. The result is an environmentally conscious textile that is influenced by all of the rich history of its past lives. If a picture tells a thousand words, how many stories do you think a piece of recycled fabric can recount? Sometimes these recycled saris are combined with synthetic fibers or attached to other recycled panels so as to strengthen the fabric as they are turned into a one-of-a-kind kaleidoscopic patchwork, as is the case with our Mexicali recycled silk panel curtains and Mexicali magic skirts!
Sari or saree?
Sorry for leaving you hanging, the answer is… both. Whereas “sari” is the typical spelling used in North America, “saree” is the common spelling used in the rest of the world. “Shari” is another spelling that is often incorrectly used. In order to keep this article as multicultural as possible, and to keep you on your toes, we will continue switching back and forth more times than you can say “spell me sari or saree, but never shari.” The etymology of sari is as simple, beautiful, and elegant as its namesake, in its earliest usage it evolves from śāṭikā (Sanskrit: शाटिका) which refers to women’s attire, and into another Sanskrit word that loosely translates to “a strip of cloth.” While more than a strip, you can see how this linguistic understanding evolves with the sari, a strip of cloth that can function as an entire woman’s wardrobe. Furthermore, how poetic it is to have these strips reduced to strips of cloth to be spun again into recycled sari silk, in the beautiful sari silk cycle of rebirth.
]]>Our upcycled silk curtains, magic skirts, and valances are made from recycled and repurposed materials. This means that minor blemishes, discolorations, pulls, and other imperfections are expected, and we at Mexicali Blues have long considered these variations “beauty marks” that add to the unique allure of each handcrafted garment.
Whether these beauty marks come from its past life as a sari, from the artisan’s hands that sewed the curtain together, or from your new life with it, here are some tips and tricks to care for your recycled silk curtains...
]]>How do you attribute meaning to something so intangible as a psychedelic combination of textures, colors, and patterns? How do you assign a color to a chameleon, curtains changing colors all the time? How do you define a piece of art? How do you tell such a complicated story with so few words?
Then, our customer service wizard Melissa asked the important question… “What would Jerry do?” The answer was clear, written in the psychedelic songs of the Grateful Dead...
]]>When we released our new curtain colorways we asked you, our customers, to help us describe them with one rule and one rule only… no mention of any specific colors. “Why” you may ask? Each recycled silk curtain, just like each colorway, transcends colors, textures, and patterns. Each curtain is a hanging piece of art, a kaleidoscope of poetic possibility.
You went above and beyond and we were blown away by the artistry of your answers...
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