Saree Soirée: A Panel on South Asian Fashion & How to Drape a Sari

A conversation on the history of the sari, three women’s evolving relationship with South Asian fashion and their current practices exploring identity and sustainability through the lens of fabric.

Each has built a practice rooted in the belief that South Asian cloth is not static heritage, but a dynamic, living thing – shaped by the hands that made it, the bodies that wear it, and the borders, real and imagined, it has crossed. The conversation weaves together Huda’s exploration of pre-partition textile histories and the shared South Asian clothing culture that borders later fractured; Priya traces the sari through every chapter of a woman’s life and refuses to let us forget the hands behind every thread, and Srishti’s radical proposition that owning a cultural garment matters far less than being moved by it, wearing it, and passing it on.

Together, they will explore how Partition reshaped how we see ourselves through clothing. What does it mean to grow up in Australia and find your way back to yourself through fabric? How do we overcome the stigma of second hand clothing in South Asian communities? Can a sari be an act of resistance in a boardroom, on a commute, at a gallery opening? And perhaps most tenderly: whose hands made this, and what do we owe them?

Workshop (FULLY BOOKED): Take part in this sari draping workshop – an interactive, an embodied continuation of the conversation with a live demonstration of multiple regional variations of sari draping. Led by Haffsah Billal. You’re invited to bring a sari you have, whether inherited, purchased, or borrowed. If you do not own a sari, we will have a sari for you to borrow during the event.

This program features three Melbourne-based women in fashion Huda Cadekiwala, Priya Ravindra Kalyanimath, Srishti Nagpal and moderator Devni Vihara. The program is curated by Daizy Maan, founder of Australian South Asian Centre