A fusion of trend and tradition

A reason to fall in love with sarees all over again… fashion designer Sangeetha Rajesh launches her new collection

When it comes to fusion dressing with a saree, we quickly think of the amalgamation of Indo-Western fusion. We often get to see such designs from famous Bollywood designers’ replica work on designer sarees. However, when designer Sangeetha Ramesh launched her new fusion saree collection titled ‘Manthra’ under her label ‘The Looms’, fashion conscious Hyderabadis got another reason to shop and create their own fashion statement.

“It was not an easy task to convince artists who went out of their comfort zone while executing my design,” said Sangeetha, who experimented her collection with trendy and traditional elements at the same time. The fusion collection consisted of 200 exclusive sarees with traditional Kalamkari that fused with various regular fabrics, hand block prints, zari works, Rangoli design, checks borders, Gota Patti etc. “Usually traditional Kalamkari was limited with floral motif that was extented to peacock or swan motif. What makes my design different is its temple motif including characters from epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata etc,” shared Sangeetha. “Apart from using such motifs, I have used different fabrics like silk, Italian crepe silk, Gorgette etc, instead of using cotton that is usually used for Kalamkari,” she added.

Another interesting element in the Kalamkari work is its vibrant colour. Since earlier Kalamkari artists use only natural dyes, there are limited colours like brown, red, black etc. As Sangeeta used synthetic dyes, each designer pieces came out with various colours like Royal Blue, Yellow, Parrot Green, Shocking Pink etc. The price range of the collection starts from Rs 17,000 that goes up to rupees Rs 20,000 depending on handwork and fabrics. “I believe in fashion that caters to common people. When you look nice, you feel better that boost your confidence level,” concluded Sangeetha.