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The Sari
Drawing on experiences from villagers in Bengal to scientists in Bangalore, this book explores the beauty, adaptability and personality of India's most iconic garment. Banerjee and Miller show why the sari has survived and indeed flourished as everyday dress when most of the world has adopted western clothing. Their book presents both an intimate portrait of the lives of women in India today and an alternative way for us all to think about our relationship to the clothes we wear.
A new bride is unable to move from her husband's motorbike as her sari comes undone. A young man wonders how he will cope with the saris complicated folds in a romantic clinch. A villager's soft, worn sari is her main comfort during a fever. Throughout the book, these and other remarkable stories place the sari at the heart of relationships between mothers and infants, mistresses and maids, designers and soap opera stars.
Illustrated and rich in personal testimony, The Sari expertly shows how one of the world's most simply constructed garments can reveal the intricate design of life in modern India.
A new bride is unable to move from her husband's motorbike as her sari comes undone. A young man wonders how he will cope with the saris complicated folds in a romantic clinch. A villager's soft, worn sari is her main comfort during a fever. Throughout the book, these and other remarkable stories place the sari at the heart of relationships between mothers and infants, mistresses and maids, designers and soap opera stars.
Illustrated and rich in personal testimony, The Sari expertly shows how one of the world's most simply constructed garments can reveal the intricate design of life in modern India.
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 14, 2012
This is simply fabulous, close to a model piece of material cultural analysis with an attitude summed up in the penultimate paragraph (p253): “A study of clothing should not be ‘cold’; it has to be involved in the tactile, sensual, emotional, intimate world of feelings.” In this spirit, there is much more going on in this excellent book that simply writing about a seemingly simple item of draped clothing made by wrapping 5 metres of cloth around the body. In the form of all good anthropology Banerjee & Miller take us into the intimate worlds of women’s lives and explore complex social relations as embodied and revealed through differing relations with the sari, in all its complex forms. It is shown to be historically constructed, the dominant now almost universal form emerging as a style in the later 19th century. It is revealed as a socially variable and changing item of clothing shaped by politicians, film stars, corporate interests, soap opera and other public cultural forces. It is shown as marking changes in the wearer’s life cycle, as associated with marriage and sexuality, where colours are taken as marking or appropriate at different stages in a life cycle. It is a complex and difficult to wear item of clothing that must be learned, where women are not free-to-choose but constrained by local cultural demands, their place in the family, domestic and public senses of propriety. In addition to wearing, buying and selling we are also given an insight to the design and production process – although Banerjee and Miller are clear that this is not the focus on the book and refer to other sources for more intensive consideration of production; this is a book about consumption and material culture.
In a book that wears it sophisticated theory lightly the sari then takes us beyond the individual’s relations with her clothing to explore differences in approaches to clothing as revealing subtle and nuanced relations between women, and between women and men. There is shown to be a dynamic inter-relation between gender and class exposed by patterns of gift giving between employers and servants and subsequent re-gifting. There is also a difficult set of relations and expectations where village women living in cities influence their relatives ‘at home’ becoming arbiters of taste, conduits for new styles – be it fabrics or patterns, styles of blouse or petticoat. We also see women who use their saris as power statements, seductively, as defenders of modesty. There is a rich engagement with the ways the sari is both a marker of ‘Indian’ womanhood and being challenged by other styles – especially the shalwar kamiz.
A sign of this theoretical and methodological sophistication is the seamless balance between the emic and etic – between analyses produced in terms of the internal cultural meanings of the sari and the deployment of external and comparative approaches. We barely notice the shift from the wide range of women’s voices Banerjee & Miller invoke and report so convincingly to the broader forms of analysis. They also make very good use of fictionalised writing styles to show subtle social relations – in several cases there are pieces of text that read as if they are short stories allowing us greater insight into the nuances of expectation (this has become more common as anthropologists and others attempt to make more sense of the ‘sensual, emotional, intimate world of feelings’). This is one aspect of the excellent use of participants’ voices that are woven effortlessly into the text.
The one downside is that there are throughout small but irritating production faults that could have been corrected for the paperback edition – but these are only minor blemishes on an elegant and richly illustrated text.
This is an excellent example of high quality scholarly writing that should be widely accessible (one of the advantages of wearing theory lightly – something we academics need to do better while still being explicit).
In a book that wears it sophisticated theory lightly the sari then takes us beyond the individual’s relations with her clothing to explore differences in approaches to clothing as revealing subtle and nuanced relations between women, and between women and men. There is shown to be a dynamic inter-relation between gender and class exposed by patterns of gift giving between employers and servants and subsequent re-gifting. There is also a difficult set of relations and expectations where village women living in cities influence their relatives ‘at home’ becoming arbiters of taste, conduits for new styles – be it fabrics or patterns, styles of blouse or petticoat. We also see women who use their saris as power statements, seductively, as defenders of modesty. There is a rich engagement with the ways the sari is both a marker of ‘Indian’ womanhood and being challenged by other styles – especially the shalwar kamiz.
A sign of this theoretical and methodological sophistication is the seamless balance between the emic and etic – between analyses produced in terms of the internal cultural meanings of the sari and the deployment of external and comparative approaches. We barely notice the shift from the wide range of women’s voices Banerjee & Miller invoke and report so convincingly to the broader forms of analysis. They also make very good use of fictionalised writing styles to show subtle social relations – in several cases there are pieces of text that read as if they are short stories allowing us greater insight into the nuances of expectation (this has become more common as anthropologists and others attempt to make more sense of the ‘sensual, emotional, intimate world of feelings’). This is one aspect of the excellent use of participants’ voices that are woven effortlessly into the text.
The one downside is that there are throughout small but irritating production faults that could have been corrected for the paperback edition – but these are only minor blemishes on an elegant and richly illustrated text.
This is an excellent example of high quality scholarly writing that should be widely accessible (one of the advantages of wearing theory lightly – something we academics need to do better while still being explicit).
August 11, 2011
A beautiful book that tells the history of the sari through words and full color photographs. I appreciated the debate on wearing the sari vs. punjabi suit/ modern attire, as well as the difficulty and skill it takes to wear a sari to complete every day tasks.
September 21, 2024
Pretty easy to read through plus lots of pictures. Definitely learned a lot more about saris through this!
December 8, 2025
Excellent ethnography. Well-written, thoughtful and gets the point across. Very interesting foray into the world of Indian aesthetics.
April 7, 2007
the silliest of pictures and the silliest of descriptions about the famous indian garment the sari, makes for a fun read on sweltering afternoons!
April 17, 2009
A fascinating look at the societal views of a sari. I learned a lot that I didn't know about India and the way that the sari is involved in the lives of its women from caste to region.
July 21, 2009
More browsing than reading, but I'm finding it fascinating and beautiful.
May 10, 2011
Descriptions, instructions on how to tie and reminisces, plus some lovely photgraphs. A lovely book to browse through.
July 23, 2012
Beautiful pictures.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews