Handmade Designer Sarees of South India

South India is famous for its beautiful silk and its unique techniques of making magnificent sarees. The illkal saris of Karnataka, the indigo is used for dyeing purposes. Gadwal and Wanaparti in Andhra Pradesh produce saris of thick cotton with a contrasting silk border and pallu worked in gold.

In Tamil Nadu, the cotton sari patterns closely resemble the silk ones. The important centres are Kanjeevaram, Salem, Pudukottai and Madurai. Coimbatore has its own style of cotton saris which are less expensive and which resemble the Chanderi patterns. Nowadays, cotton saris woven with the traditional silk patterns, called kalakshezra, are widely popular. Kerala has started weaving cotton saris lately. Its specialty isthe karalkudi saris of unbleached cotton with rich broad gold borders and pallus.

Gypsy Skirt Jupe Cotton Wrap Summer Clothes

Girls' skirt in hand-loom woven cotton fabric is especially suitable for women in late twenties and beyond. Hand-block prints in Indian motifs make them attractive casual apparel. Drawstring at waist adds to their casual look and feel. Urban women in India in the age group twenty five to fifty prefer to wear these skirts in spring and summer. Long cotton skirts have airy feel in summer.

Early Indian literature, speaks of the bhairnivasni, a skirt like garment, which evolved from the antariya, a simple tube shaped garment. This was stitched on one side, gathered and held at the waist by a girdle. Women wore it as a lower garment. It later evolved into a skirt with a drawstring called the ghaghri. The ghaghri was a narrow skirt, made from five and a half meters of fabric, the same length as the original antariya. The skirt in India is known by many different names, depending on the regional style, the most popular, by far, being the ghaghra.It was the flare that made the ghaghra such a sumptuous garment and one so captivating that it was celebrated both in poetry and art. The ghaghra is really a long skirt, which has the construction of a simple gathered skirt or a flared gored skirt. It covers the legs fully or partially, depending on the norms of propriety among different ethnic groups, although a long ghaghra usually relates to more.