The sarees exuded a charming smell, each waiting to share the stories behind them.
The BRAC social enterprise, after 35 years of spearheading the cause of local crafts, has put together an exhibition to showcase the best and brightest of a Bengali's most cherished garment.
‘Saree - the Art of Draping’ was inaugurated at Aarong's flagship outlets at Dhaka’s Uttara and Gulshan on Friday.
"This is all about celebrating the treasures of tradition," says Aarong's former head of design Chandra Shekhar Shaha, who supervised the project for two years.
“This exhibition is almost like an awareness programme,” he said, smiling.
A team of five designers and nearly 300 artisans from BRAC’s centres in Manikganj, Jamalpur, Jessore and Sherpur took two years to create 1,400 signature sarees now on display in these outlets.
Another four-member display team worked hard to place the silks, Muslins, cottons, Katans and Jamdanis in decorated surroundings with soft balls and bundles of white cotton -- “symbols of purity”, as Shaha put it.
Black and white photographs of ancient women clad in sarees were elegantly lined up above the sarees on display.
“We believe in tradition but are not unaware of the contemporary,” Shaha said, holding up a hand-stitched Anchal of a pearl white silk saree.
Trees of life and a chariot, ‘Nokshi Katha’ designs, were embedded in the Anchal with bright threads.
Its inside was quite a contrast, with the subtle shimmer of white stitches over white print on silk.
Another silk and appliqué saree bore contemporary colours – a tie dye of white, black, cobalt blue and tiny details of red.
A pale green ombre Jamdani with golden Zardosi borders, a mix and match theme, stood out glazing.
Aarong, which sells roughly 200,000 sarees a year, has brought together all its techniques, themes and innovations to create special designs for this exhibition, said designer Hasina Yasmin.
“Our themes include broken glass, negative print, mix and match, ground stitch and many more. The Katans here are inspired by designs from at least 100 years ago.”
Very few designs have been repeated – there were four copies of a saree at the most on sale, as exclusivity was priority.
“We want our customers to own an exclusive masterpiece,” said another designer Shahida Akhter. “We didn’t want to price them more than usual, because we want people to take the sarees home."
The sarees will be on display from Mar 28 to April 7 in both Uttara and Gulshan.