Exhibition of modern saris to come to city

The Offbeat Sari exhibition is due to open at the Midlands Arts Centre on 28 June

A touring exhibition of modern and experimental saris, including those made from denim and from steel threads, is coming to Birmingham this month.

The Offbeat Sari exhibition will be at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) from 28 June until 2 November.

The show features nearly 60 saris from the past 15 years, ranging from a replica of a foil-like garment made for Lady Gaga, to those worn by a women's vigilante group in India and a skateboarder in Canada.

"The sari is often understood here [in the UK] as something that's worn for special occasions, or worn by previous generations, but it's not just confined to those settings," said Priya Khanchandani, the show's lead curator.

She added that the sari was "a dynamic garment", which was always evolving and which many younger women were experimenting with.

The touring exhibition has been created by the Design Museum in London and Birmingham is its only other stop in the UK.

The "gulabi gang", a women's vigilante group formed in northern India, have worn pink saris as a uniform

The luxury saris on show include a replica of a garment made for Lady Gaga in 2010, for which the Mumbai-born fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani used a fabric called foil jersey.

The show also contains saris that women have used to make a political statement, such as one of the pink saris worn as a uniform by the "gulabi gang", a women's vigilante group formed in the early 2000s in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India.

The MAC is hosting an exhibition called Sari Stories alongside the main show, where people across the Midlands share their memories of wearing saris.

Priya Khanchandani, the show's lead curator, said she wanted to show how both fashion designers and ordinary women were experimenting with saris

Ms Khanchandani said the ways in which women draped their saris was also an area where trends kept changing.

The exhibition includes a sari draped like a hoodie, as well as videos that show the different ways to drape the garment.

"It's a single piece of unstitched cloth so it's quite malleable," Ms Khanchandani said, adding that this made it possible for both fashion designers and ordinary women to experiment with it.