She is stylist to the stars. Deepika, Katrina, Sonam, Kareena... the list is long. And yet the first time Kalpana Shah wore a sari, it ended in disaster. It's been many, many years since that 'sari day' in college and the 66-year-old now laughs happily at her 17-year-old self.
She didn't permit that early disappointment with the sari to come in the way of what is now a full-time interest and profession — draping saris. "I love the sari... it is a classic garment," says Shah.
The trickiest part about draping one, as all 'sari virgins' and 'sari debutants' know painfully well, is getting the pleats right. Even if you do manage to spread the pleats evenly, holding them together before they come undone is akin to balancing a blob of jelly on a straw. "My secret weapon is a big clothes clip. Without this, even I'm zero," confesses Shah. "When I pleat the sari, I use these clips to hold them in place. The same goes for the pallu. The clip ensures that the pleats stay in place. They save me a whole lot of time and energy. More importantly, they result in a very neat drape."
While that may sound modest, Shah's skill goes beyond simply clipping the pleats together. Over the last three decades, she has evolved more than 300 different styles of draping the nine-yard fabric. Some of these have been documented in her coffee table book, The Whole 9 Yards, in which she enumerates basic drapes, step-by-step along with photographs. Among the eight styles are the popular Gujarati and Bengali drapes as well as what Shah refers to as "retro" and "corporate" drapes.
"To make sari draping accessible and handy for the young generation, we launched the LearnSari app too," says Shah. The app, available for Android and iOS, offers free previews of videos and step-by-step photo instructions for the eight basic draping styles. "Once you are satisfied with the initial instructions, you can download the entire video for a small fee," says Shah's son, Nirbhay.
