In a world where ‘designer’ is the beginning of luxury, tradition has only a small place. But a very special place. To the connoisseur of sarees, the wardrobe may have a forest of zardosis from designer boutiques, but is not complete without a traditional saree that spells as much luxury as the six yards of designer exotica in the next hanger. And may cost as much, too. Sarees that become family heirlooms and are handed down through generations.

Just for once, step out of the brightly lit mall and enter the magical world of exquisite sarees that have come from looms in some non-descript village, sarees where the only thing designer is the unschooled weaver’s imagination, not blemished by modernism imported from fashion schools in cities. As they have done for centuries, the looms still work the weft and warp in the same manner, yet producing a completely new saree every time. Designer in every possible way, including the price, a must have in every Indian woman’s wardrobe, to be brought out and dra­ped only on special occasions.

Soft strains of traditional Indian music waft gently in the background as you take in the brilliant colours of the hundreds of sarees on display in L’affaire, a boutique in New Delhi’s Select City Mall in Saket. But no, you are not interested in what’s on display — you want the very best, no less. It takes a while before you convince the manager to show you the most expensive traditional sarees they have. You settle down, not quite knowing what to expect. An attendant gently unwraps the muslin cloth that holds the saree. What unfolds before your eyes is a deep red Patan Patola. The price? Hold your breath — Rs 2.6 lakh.

At first glance, this is definitely not what you expected out of Rs 2.6 lakh. And then you reach out and softly run your fingers on the saree. As the folds are unravelled you begin to notice the intricacies of the pattern. When you flip the saree, the other side is as smooth to touch as well, one of the hallmarks of a posh woven saree. This is woven, you have to remind yourself: such is its perfection — not a weave or weft out of place. The colours dazzle, and the minute detailing in the gorgeous pallu leaves you wondering about the complex engineering feat of warp and weft combining with shuttles of threads of all perfectly matched colours running between them and translating millimetre by millimetre the design that’s only in the weaver’s mind.

This particular saree is done in the ancient double ikat craft, says Krishna Aroop, the man behind L’affaire shops in Delhi, as he joins you. (Later, when you google, you’ll find references to Patola in Ramayana. Yes, the craft is that old.) The kind that takes weavers months — if not years — to complete, Aroop continues. So complex is the process no more than half-an-inch a day can be woven.

Patan Patolas do not necessarily make it to a bride’s trousseau, the prime clientele of expensive sarees in India, agrees Aroop. But there is a loyal clientele for Patolas, women who know what they want and then get it, price being of no consequence. To prove his point, Aroop shows another Patan Patola in rich green — in a similar price range — that he has sold earlier in the day, for which the pallu is being hemmed and falls stitched.

Yet, this is not the most expensive of Patolas. The finer range of Patan Patolas — where silk gets finer and patterns more intricate —could cost you anything between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 5 lakh.

The Uppada silk that he shows you next, which combines the real gold-silver zari brocade weaving technique used in Andhra Pradesh with Kanjeevaram style border panelling in fuchsia pink, is worth more than the gold in it. It costs Rs 1.89 lakh.

When it comes to expensive brocades, Benarasi silk is the thing. At Benares House in Connaught Place in New Delhi, again the initial reluctance gives way to a lot of enthusiasm as store manager Brijrani Sharma gives you a quick update on the real gold zari that makes some sarees heirloom. The preciousness of the art, the intricacy of design, and then the fabric itself, all combine to give a saree its value. Sharma opens up a tissue package with the tenderness of handling a new-born baby. What is revealed is not just a brick-red benarasi silk saree with real gold zari designs, but a piece of art, a statement in traditional opulence. This saree costs Rs 1.2 lakh.

No woman’s wardrobe is complete without a Kanjeevaram. Sarees woven in this technique, which traditionally double wefts and double warps 640 patterns, top the list when it comes to expensive traditional sarees. But the weavers in Kanjeevaram are open to tweaking their traditional weave. Their innovations include studding a saree with Swarovski crystals and artwork pallus. Prices of these sarees are stratospheric. One has even made it to the Guiness Book of Records. The most expensive Kanjeevaram ever made, a joint effort of 30 weavers and the traditional saree house Chennai Silks, is woven with precious stones such as ruby, diamonds, emeralds, yellow sapphires, sapphires, cat’s eyes, topaz, pearls and coral, and some platinum to boot, cost a whopping Rs 40 lakh. The pallu features the famous Ravi Varma painting Lady Musicians. (It was a one of a kind saree, picked up, according to shop officials, by a Mangalore-based businessman.)

Even while churning out zardosi and other embroidery-embellished sarees and labelling them designer, some fashion designers have taken to specially commissioning traditional sarees and experimenting with designs. But even these are made entirely on village looms.

The Kolkata-based designer Anamika Khanna is one among those who experiments with the designs, but she says she keeps the traditional aspect of, say a benarasi, intact. Traditional sarees are still the must wear of a legion of women on special traditional occasions. In fact, she believes, these sarees are the preferred attire on such occasions to other forms of clothing. Khanna says that though she may insist that her weavers weave a particular pattern, she does not make them stud it with precious stones. Her collection of traditional sarees, sourced directly from the weavers, could begin at Rs 3 lakh and go up to Rs 4 lakh.

M Chandrashekar, who owns the Chennai-based Deepam Silks, says they have sold about 300 sarees with an average price of Rs 1 lakh.

In Delhi’s Cottage Emporium, as much a paradise of Indian craft as a must visit for foreign tourists, the most expensive sarees are on display on a table covered in glass case. The less expensive ones are on hangers in a row of racks. Buyers are few and far between and in many cases Indian women living abroad on a visit back home. Mary Joy, deputy manager, points to a pale pink Kanjeevaram with real gold zari at Rs 1.21 lakh and a classic Andhra Pradesh Patola in beige, red and blue at Rs 1.56 lakh. Usually, Joy says, they sell a lot of tanchois, brocades and buti silks going up to Rs 50,000. Cottage once sold a traditional chikan all-white saree at Rs 1.20 lakh. The speciality was in its jali work, a difficult design element created out of bunching threads of warp and weft to make little pockets of mesh all over the saree.

In Kolkata, where the saree still survives as the most common women wear, the salesmen at Rangotsav Saree say their primary clientele for expensive sarees are non-resident Indians. They have real gold zari Benarasis costing between Rs 1.2 lakh and Rs 1.3 lakh, each exquisite in design and in rich silk fabric.

Back in L’affaire, Aroop watches the attendants carefully rewrap the expensive sarees and put them away in a wooden wardrobe. He says these are not merely sarees, they are works of art. They are products of labour of love and passion and design sense of the weaver with an innate sense of converting them into six yards of sheer joy. The price that you pay is merely an acknowledgement of that.

(with inputs from Jemima Raman,Phyllida Jay, R Srividhya and Ritwik Mukherjee)

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