Sabyasachi Mukherjee, the dream designer of most Indian brides has suddenly found himself in the eye of a pretty controversial storm. During an address to Indian students at the Harvard India Conference, he said “I think, if you tell me that you do not know how to wear a saree, I would say shame on you. It’s a part of your culture, (you) need to stand up for it.”
While the internet rightly lost its mind over this shaming of women that keeps happening from time to time, it really wasn’t expected from a designer who is otherwise known to be culturally sensitive.
Now, the undeniable fact remains that saree is an essential for every Indian woman in her wardrobe. While the urban upper class may not wear it every day, he still cannot deny the fact that a large population of the country has kept this garment and its many forms alive.
Coming to the urban upper class, the designer, with his statement, shamed his own customer base considering they are the only ones who can afford his designs which start at about INR 60,000 for the most basic saree. Come on, you cannot talk about saree losing its charm and shame women for not knowing how to drape it while charging people a price that happens to be higher than the average annual income of the country.
Another important detail that we need to remind the designer is that the saree holds a place above western outfits for us in our minds. For any formal or important event, everyone’s first choice of outfit is a saree, not a skirt, a pair of trousers or a crop top. There is nothing more elegant and more sophisticated than a well-draped saree and nobody denies that.
In an open letter this morning, however, Mr. Mukherjee issued an apology to all those hurt by his statements. But the thing that strikes us as odd is that the letter seems less like an apology and more like a feeble defense. With statements like “Body shaming, attaching connotations of ‘Auntie Ji’, calling them sloppy; these are all ways that some men and women alike belittle the sari (and, more accurately, the wearer of the sari),” “Many women, young and old, are scared to have an outing in a sari because it is shrouded in so many layers of taboo and controversy, often citing inability to correctly drape a sari as an exit point,” and ” I would like to bring to your notice, that the majority of my staff at Sabyasachi Couture are women,” he himself has belittled the wearers of saree i.e. most Indian women who love and respect the garment. An excuse for saying “shame on you” cannot be that he employs women.
While I somewhere agree with the other side of the debate which says that people’s intent is a little more important than their words, it’s Sabyasachi’s apology that made things worse than his actual words. At a time when gender equality is finally being recognised as a war worth waging and feminists (yes, I said the ‘f’ world) are trying to make everyone a little more sensitive towards the struggles of women, things like these put everything in perspective and make us realise that we’ve still got a long way to go.
Already rethinking the choice for my trousseau designer. Thanks, Sabya!
