The Fashion Scoop · India Today Podcasts

70 years unwoven: How Nishant is reviving Venkatagiri or Sarada saris | The Fashion Scoop, Ep 32

·34 min·3 clips

British colonizers cut the thumbs of handloom weavers to destroy India's textile industry and protect Manchester's mills.

It begins with handlooms. The host connects fashion, films, cinema, and textiles before Nishant joins the conversation, and he keeps the talk close to the ground. Weaver Story, as he describes it, is built around two things: the problems weavers face and the customers who want to understand Indian textiles better. That gives the episode a practical feel. The conversation is not treating craft like something locked behind glass. It keeps circling back to how people find these weaves, wear them, and learn to see the work inside them. Cinema gives the host a natural way in. A mention of Manish Malhotra and Sri Devi opens the idea that onscreen style can help audiences imagine what a textile can become. Nishant does not stretch the point. Weaver Story has not borrowed from actors in that personal way, he says, though it has worked on many craft and design revivals. The celebrity angle then gets more interesting. When a celebrity wears an existing sari well, people start noticing it and asking for it. Nishant sounds warm about that, but not starry-eyed. The response depends partly on affection for the person wearing the garment and partly on how they carry it. He gives stylists proper credit too. A good stylist can make the technique, color, feeling, and labor in a piece visible to people who do not speak the craft language. That is where the episode feels most like The Fashion Scoop: gentle, curious, and more interested in taste than argument. Nishant closes by thanking the show for giving traditional weaves space, then nudges listeners to make them feel current for a younger generation.

As heard by us

An easygoing look at hand looms, craft revival, and the styling that helps traditional weaves reach newer audiences.

The episode settles into an easy interview about hand looms and textiles, with Nishant of Weaver Story describing a modest operation shaped by weavers' needs and by a practical way for customers to try Indian textiles.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a reflective listen about handlooms, Weaver Story, and how celebrity styling can put older sari styles back in view.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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