National Handloom Day: Team HT City celebrates the beautiful weaves of India

On National Handloom Day, Team HT City raises a toast to the beautiful crafts of weavers by wearing their treasured handloom.

Designers and fashion lovers have been doing their bit to revive dying handlooms in India. India has a lovely smorgasbords of handloom fabrics that skilled artisans have been weaving from generations across the country. Be it tussar silk from Jharkhand, Bomkai from Orissa, or Mangalagiri cotton from Andhra Pradesh , each weave has a spellbinding story to tell. There’s always fear that these delicate crafts might cease to exist one day owing to advance technology. And yet so many crafts have thrived, standing the test of time. You always feel special when you wear one of these pieces, so painstakingly put together by someone miles away. You don’t know who the person is, but you know there are a zillion dreams quietly woven into the fabric.

Team HT City decided to celebrate National Handloom Day by taking out one such handloom piece from their closet that hadn’t seen the light of the day for months or years. We wore it to work, and realised that the joy and pride in wearing handloom pieces is unmatched.

Sonal Kalra, Managing Editor, Entertainment, Hindustan Times

It’s a sunshine yellow handwoven sari by Anavila Mishra. It brightens up a dull day for me. Extremely comfortable in any season. I have owned it proudly for two years. Photo by Manoj Verma

Neha Sharma, Senior Entertainment Editor , HT City

It was fun to rummage through one of my mom’s big, black boxes and find this hand-woven beauty. I’ve always been conscious about not being able to carry a sari gracefully with petticoat, blouse and heels. So, I just wore it over what I was wearing to work. Jeans, T-shirt and everyday shoes. It was light-weight and easy to carry.

Himika Chaudhuri, Editor, Commercial Content

The sari is a cotton weave from Dhaniakhali, the village in the Hooghly district in West Bengal that is famous for its handloom saris. I picked it up because of the unusual colour combination. The sari carries the earthiness of village life in its brown base and its green, bright yellow and pink on the border. Pairing it up with a shirt was with an effort to portray a village in north India’s Haryana, where women usually wear their saris this way. This is like taking a rustic route to a create a fashionable urban look.

Snigdha Ahuja, Principal Correspondent

I have a special connect with this brocade dupatta. When the beautiful burnt pink hits the light, it fills up the entire room with warmth. My best friend, Sheet, gifted it to me during her wedding back in February. It was basically my bridesmaid dupatta, and I love it because she bought it in the colourful bylanes of Benaras. The smell and touch of the textile transports one to a different era.

Ankita Rawat, Senior Correspondent

Apart from etiquettes, I inherited trunks of saris from my lovely grandma. She was a charmer who shaped my idea of elegance. Her saris, mostly handloom and handwoven are so beautiful. This sari is almost six decades old and absolutely priceless. It is a white Kashmiri silk sari with beautiful blue flowers embroidered on it. This has always been my instant, elegant, fail-proof saree!

Prerna Gauba, Senior Correspondent

I teamed this raw silk handwoven suit with a tussar silk dupatta. My mom had bought this dupatta during her college days. It was her favourite piece back then. There’s something very special about wearing handwoven pieces.

Nikita Saxena, reporter

Saris are amazing when they’re handloom, but they’re the best when they are your mom’s. This Handloom Day, this handloom cotton sari from my mom’s collection is my choice of attire. I fell in love with it for its simple colour scheme and I don’t think it’s going back to her wardrobe anytime soon!

Shreya Mukherjee, Senior Content Producer

This is something that I have never done before. I wore a sari to work! The handwoven sari that I could think of was this purple six yards by Ruchika Modi that I recently added to my wardrobe. I love the golden zari work on it that adds to the look.

Concept & styling: Prerna Gauba
Photos: Amal KS/HT
Hair and makeup: Naina Arora
Jewellery: Apala by Sumit