Touring Exhibition Slots available from 2026
The Offbeat Sari touring exhibition
A major exhibition celebrating the contemporary sari. Curated by our Head of Curatorial, Priya Khanchandani, this exhibition unravels its numerous forms, demonstrating the sari to be a metaphor for the layered and complex definitions of India today. It brings together dozens of the finest saris of our time from designers, wearers and craftspeople in India.
What’s in the exhibition?
Worn as an everyday garment by some and considered by others to be formal or uncomfortable, the sari has multiple definitions. Conventionally an unstitched drape wrapped around the body, which can be draped in a variety of ways, its unfixed form has enabled it to morph and absorb changing cultural influences.
In recent years, the sari has been reinvented. Designers are experimenting with hybrid forms such as sari gowns and dresses, pre-draped saris and innovative materials such as steel. Young people in cities who used to associate the sari with dressing up can now be found wearing saris and sneakers on their commutes to work. Individuals are wearing the sari as an expression of resistance to social norms and activists are embodying it as an object of protest.
Today, the sari in urban India manifests as a site for design innovation, an expression of identity, and a crafted object carrying layers of cultural meanings. The exhibition unravels the sari as a metaphor for the complex definitions of India today.
Tour availability from 2026.
From the Press
'Spectacular’
★★★★ Evening Standard
'Summer's hottest exhibition'
The Sunday Times
Get in touch
Enquiries
For more information on this touring exhibition, contact the Touring team by completing the enquiries form.
Exhibition photography by Andy Stagg.