When sarees speak: Saree pacts and social media narratives

Abstract

Through an ethnographic study of online saree pacts and social media groups, this article charts the emergence of digital saree storytelling as women from India and the global South Asian diaspora post stories about their personal and professional lives while also talking about their sarees. The article examines how saree stories are told and consumed in these online spaces, and the role new media plays in encouraging individual and collective self-expression through fashion. In doing so, it highlights how saree pacts allow for alternative models of fashion opinion leadership and style to emerge in ways that are uplifting and empowering for women who are otherwise underrepresented in print and popular fashion media. It argues that such sites are critical spaces shifting the narrative around women in the Global South from victimhood to pleasure. Additionally, saree pacts represent a new form of digital community formation centred around the appreciation of traditional fashion, which can alter our perception of the intersection of traditional fashion and feminism while also decolonising fashion's existing Eurocentric frameworks.

A tale of two generations: Indian and Pakistani immigrant women’s negotiation of femininity.

“…There is an unspoken expectation to dress in attire that does not reveal too much skin. Importantly, dressing is an important aspect of expressing, embodying, and negotiating femininity among desi women, especially in diaspora communities (Sandhu, 2022). It is also a means of sustaining culture by transmitting embodied and material practices across generations.…”

Introduction: theorising fashion media

“…Of course, what distinguishes Minai's and Sandhu's pieces and does much to contribute to the sense of liveliness is the foregrounding of articulation between body and garments. For Minai, the relationship between body and suit matters, and for Sandhu, the saree-body nexus is uniquely powerful, as the saree becomes an 'agential garment that connects fashion to feminism' (Sandhu, 2022). This sense of agency is also evident in Shroff's analysis of ajrak as sacred cloth, which, when mediated on Parveen's body, effectively queers not only Parveen and her musical and performance practice, but a constellation of other institutions.…”