Southern Region
The saree or sari represents Indian culture in its correct form. This ancient garment embodies the woman's personality, who is graceful and elite. The saree works wonders for your personality as it can be draped in different styles that vary in color, print, design, texture, fabric, and many other elements.
A) Southern Region
States: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana
- Bobbili of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Cotton
- Craft – Hand-woven
- Themes – The sarees come in subtle colours and minimal embellishments.
Figure 1: Bobbili saree
2.Dharamvaram of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Silk.
- Craft – Hand-woven with elaborate zari work.
- Themes – The motifs are inspired from temple architectures. They depict emotions of religious and ceremonial celebrations. Peacocks, lotus, elephants, deer, and star design are popular designs.
Figure 2: Dharamvaram saree
3. Gadwal of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Cotton or silk body with attached silk/ viscose rayon border and palloo.
- Craft – Hand-woven fine cotton with zari work. The borders attached by back-breaking or interlock weft technique (called ‘kuttu’).
- Themes – The brocaded designs represent south Indian cultural patterns. These include peacock,rudraksha rule, temple motif, mango butti.
Fig 3: Simple striped gadwal silk saree Fig 4: Heavy brocade gadwal silk saree
4. Gollabhama from Telangana
- Fabric material – Cotton.
- Craft – Hand-woven.
- Themes – Intricate motifs of 'gollabhama' or milk maids are woven in the saree.
Figure 5: Gollabhama saree
5. Ilkal of Karnataka
- Fabric material – Cotton, silk.
- Craft – Woven with a unique weaving and knotting technique (topi teni) between the warp threads of the saree body and the saree palloo. Both of which are woven separately on different looms.
- Themes – Body of the saree is plain, striped, or chequered. The border designs are called Chikki paras (dots or stars), Gomi dadi (arrowheads), and Gayathri (multiple layers of design).
Figure 6: Chikki paras ilkal saree Figure 7: Gomi dadi ilkal saree
Figure 8: Gayathri ilkal cotton silk saree
6. Kalamkari of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Cotton, silk, jute.
- Craft – Hand-painting on fabric using a ‘kalam’ or pen with natural dyes.
- Themes – Popular motifs drawn in Kalamkari are flowers, birds like peacocks, animals like horses and elephants, and divine characters of Hindu mythology.
Figure 9: Kalamkari cotton saree
7. Kanchipuram/ Kanjivaram of Tamil Nadu
- Fabric material – Silk.
- Craft – The weaving method uses three shuttles. The border, palloo and body of the saree are woven separately and later interlocked by weft weaving technique known as Korvai. In the Petni Technique, the palloo is woven in a different colour that requires changes in warp.
- Themes – Zari patterns and motifs with silver and gold thread. Designs woven include stripes, gold dots, temple borders, checks, floral, sun, moon, chariots, peacocks, parrots, swans, lions, coins, mangoes, leaves.
Figure 10: Kanchipuram silk saree
8. Kandangi of Tamil Nadu
- Fabric material – Cotton, silk.
- Craft – Hand-woven. A special needle frame or pannai is designed by artisans in Nelakotta using handpicked and spliced bamboo sticks.
- Themes – It features strikingly contrast colour combinations and big borders. The design language incorporates clean lines and symmetry inspired by the local architecture as well as intricate flora,fauna and mythological beings.
Figure 11: Kandangi saree
9. Kasavu of Kerala
- Fabric material – Cotton, silk.
- Craft – Hand-woven.
- Themes – The term ‘kasavu’ refers to the gold thread (zari) used in the border (‘Kasvi’ is Sanskrit for shining gold). These sarees are very minimalistic and the only design element is the border.However, there are variations with buttis of ovals, leaf, diamond, peacock, flower motifs and temple borders.
Figure 12: Cotton kasavu saree
10. Konrad (also called Mubbagham or Temple saree) of Tamil Nadu
- Fabric material – Silk.
- Craft – Interlock weft-woven saree that has its two borders of equal widths.
- Themes – The designed borders are made with beautiful motifs of animals, birds, flowers and vines.
Figure 13: Konrad saree
11. Lambani of Karnataka
- Fabric material – Cotton.
- Craft – Lambani/ Kasuti embroidery by the Lambani/ Banjara tribe. It uses 14 types of stitches.
- Themes – The embroidery follow geometric shapes like squares, circles, triangles, rectangles,diamond, diagonal and parallel lines. Stitches are done with contrasting coloured threads and decorated with shells, coins, mirrors, and beads.
Figure 14: Mangalgiri silk saree with lambani embroidery
12. Madurai sungudi of Tamil Nadu
- Fabric material – Cotton
- Craft – Tie-dye and weaving. The name of the weave ‘Sungudi’ is derived from the Sanskrit word sunnam meaning ‘round’.
- Themes – The borders and end-pieces are usually a different colour than the body of the saree.A zari pattern with complementary warp threads is often used in the borders.
Figure 15: Madurai Sungudi saree
13. Malkha of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Cotton.
- Craft – Hand-woven and naturally dyed.
- Themes – Minimalistic borders and plain body.
Figure 16:Malkha saree
14. Mangalgiri of Andhra Pradesh
Fabric material – Cotton, silk, cotton-silk blend.
- Craft – Hand-woven in a manner exerting force during the weaving process to create a weave without gaps.
- Themes – Minimalistic or no motifs on the body with intricate zari on the border and palloo.
Fig 17: Mangalgiri cotton silk saree Fig 18: Mangalgiri silk saree with zari work
15. Narayanpet of Telangana
- Fabric material – Silk.
- Craft – Hand-woven wherein eight sarees are made at one go on a loom. Vegetable dyes are used for colouration.
- Themes – The body has a checked surface design with embroidery. The border or palloo have intricate ethnic designs such as a temple.
Figure 19: Narayanpet saree
16. Pochampally Ikat of Telangana
- Fabric material – Cotton, silk, cotton-silk blends.
- Craft – Tie-dye and hand-woven. In single ikat either warp or weft is tie-dyed, where as in double ikat both warp and weft are tie dyed.
- Themes – The designs represent forms of squares, diamonds, dots, stripes, birds, flowers and checks.
Fig 20: Pochampally single ikat saree Fig 21: Puttapaka single ikat
Figure 22: Pochampally double ikat saree
17. Ponduru khadi of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Cotton.
- Craft – Hand-woven using yarn made of red and white cotton spun on single spindle charkha.
- Themes – Sarees are of earthy colours and contrast borders that are attached using the extra shuttle attachment technique (called ‘kuppadam’)
Figure 23: Ponduru khadi saree
18. Udupi cotton of Karnataka
- Fabric material – Cotton.
- Craft – Hand-woven in Malabar frame looms.
- Themes – Sarees range from plain with solid border to striped or chequered to all over buttas and golden thread work.
Figure 24: Udupi cotton saree
19. Uppada of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Silk.
- Craft – Hand-woven by the Jamdani method such that designs are visible from both sides of the fabric.
- Themes – The saree fabric is almost translucent. Intricate designs are woven by zari work, which comprises ornamental flowers, peacock and curvilinear motifs.
Figure 25: Uppada silk saree
20. Venkatagiri of Andhra Pradesh
- Fabric material – Cotton, silk.
- Craft – Fine muslins, traditionally woven in an unbleached cotton.
- Themes – Traditional motifs like dots, coins, leaves, mangoes, lotuses, peacocks, parrots and simple geometrical patterns are woven in the body using extra-weft technique. The borders are broad with elaborate patterns. Motifs are repeated in the palloo between the gold bands (known as variakanchu).
Fig 26: Venkatagiri silk saree Fig 27: Venkatagiri cotton saree