Meet the Saree man of India' who believes that drapes are not gender specific
He has been wearing it for the last 12 years to reclaim its gender fluidity.
A saree is indeed a very beautiful piece of garment that we drape around our body. But Himanshu Verma, AKA the Saree Man asks why saree should be a woman’s prerogative?
While what can we say, except that this is what we have always seen. But Verma begs to differ.
He has been wearing it for the last 12 years to reclaim its gender fluidity.
His fascination about on this grew because of the work he was doing on this subject.
Since 2014, he has been organising the Saree Festival every year. There he curates both traditional and comtemporary versions of the garment.
Verma doesn’t consider saree as a feminine piece of clothing and believes that it needs to be celebrated.
Here’s what he said in a recent interview:
I started wearing sarees as a gesture of re-appropriating the saree as a male garment and highlighting the historical traditions where it was all about the fluidity of the drape and not about the structure that was gender specific.
(Photo: Facebook/ Saree Man)The saree as we know today is actually just 150 years old, and it is what is called the Thakurbari drape or the drape pioneered by the Tagore ladies. It is also associated with the Parsi Bombay ladies.
(Photo: Facebook/ Saree Man)Before that, the saree was worn in so many ways and the men would also wear dhotis and sarees, and in many parts of India the two terms are interchangeable. So I think saree is a generic term and it is not a garment for women specifically."