Early days of ZAZOU: The Sari Mountain

We welcome a guest post from Coco du Barry, an international cat who has travelled the world and is a founding officer of Zazou.

Here Coco recounts her inspiration for our Silk Sari Scarf.

Sari scarf tied at the ends, a traditional way to wear it

She takes us on a trip through the back alleys of Indian bazaars – described in such rich detail, it could have been yesterday.

(And because Coco doesn’t reveal her age, for official purposes it was yesterday. Ahem.)

Go along with her to the Sari Mountain – a literal mountain of uniquely embroidered, vintage silk she found and brought back to the states for your accessory-loving pleasure!

And we’re so glad she did.

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By Coco du Barry:

The sari-wearing women of the 70’s in India were ubiquitous.

As a lover of all things textile, I couldn’t image a more wonderful way to dress. The grace with which the women wore these lengths of cloth was memorable.
The saris are made of all sorts of fabrics and draped in a many ways. The women who work in street construction, for example (and yes there were and are many) will wear their saris in the kaccha nivi style, passing the pleats between the legs and tucked up in back, creating a capri-length pant arrangement. And so adorned would lift heavy pans of stone on their heads.
A long way from the work-a-day wardrobe of the west!

Vegetable vendor in Bundi, India

At the many weddings I was lucky enough to observe from the dining gazebo of my Juhu beach hotel, the variation of the rich silk fabrics were phenomenal. Apart, yet just beside these elaborate garden weddings, the viewing was fantastic.
The gentle breeze off the Arabian Sea, the palm trees ornamented with rings of lights. The long buffet tables, the kids screaming and running around and the unbelievable array of colorful saris. Sublime.
The Indian bride dresses in red. She is seated on a flower-decorated raised platform with her groom. The guests are adorned in saris in shades of fuchsia, emerald, turquoise blue, lime green, saffron yellow, royal blue, purple and lavenders. Diamonds flash from noses, ears and bellybuttons.

The swirls of prints and textures are truly stunning.
My longing for these saris became intense. I had gotten to know two brothers who ran a fine sari house in Benaras. I spent time in their blissfully air-conditioned showroom watching prospective brides select their dowries of saris. The long lengths of fabric were thrown on the richly carpeted floor until they formed a pile of silky luxuriousness.
Early in the morning, while sailing down the Ganges, one can see the lengths of washed saris being snapped and set on the ghats, the long stairs leading to the river, to dry in the sun.

Women at the ghat

The fabrics are astoundingly varied: jacquards, fine embroideries, dupionis, watered silks – the colors so vivid on the pureness of the silk.

There is no fear of color in India.
One time in the showroom a rather – shall we say – privileged young woman, asked the bacha (he who brings drinks among other jobs) to place her cold drink, which had been served in a bottle with a straw, into a silver cup. He bowed and did as she bid and I wondered what century we were living in.
Outside the showroom was a room of clerks seated on the padded, white-covered floor working on a low white clad table; damp bamboo blinds with electric fans behind them tried to keep off the heat. It was as different from a Western office as one could imagine and the peace of that outer office in the sweltering heat has stayed with me.
Meanwhile back in Bombay, my search for saris brought me to my local source of all things exotic: the Bhendi and adjoining chor bazaar. A complex whirlwind of twisting lanes, dirt roads, hand trucks, cows, noise, temples and people – lots of people.

The shops were up a couple of stairs from the street and mostly open-fronted. I had spent many a day in the bazaars finding silver jewelry, glass bracelets, strange objects from abandoned ships, and of course, scarves!

The Bazaar

Now I went in search of a certain sari wallah (wallah meaning a purveyor of sorts). To get to this sari wallah it was necessary to hire one of the young children who worked as guides through the maze of the bazaar. Together we wound through the dark alleys, up some stairs, down others, around strange passes until finally arriving at a room that featured a virtual mountain of saris.

Which we were encouraged to climb and look through.

Some of these had obviously never been worn and were still folded in their tissue paper. Many were old and torn. But still – gorgeous saris were everywhere. We mined the mountain of cloth for a long time.

Sequined, embroidered, and fabulously printed, these fabrics were the most gorgeous I had ever seen.
In the end we bought lots of them after the compulsory hour of bargaining on the price (and lots of cold drinks with straws in them!)
Eventually I returned to California, my suitcase stuffed with gorgeous saris – some of which I hung on the walls, some brought out to look at occasionally and all of which inspired the adventure that is ZAZOU.

Strung flowers at the Bazaar