Sabyasachi Mukherjee is a young, hip, Bengali designer is insisting that khadi can be a great fashion statement. Khadi, which is simple homespun weave championed by Gandhi in the 1930s to boost the rural economy and give India a sense of nationalist pride during the fight for independence, is refined, sophisticated, eco-friendly and comfortable, and has too long been regarded as the poor man’s fabric. Read more about it in BBC.com article titled “Indian designer champions homespun“.

According to Mukherjee, to wear Khadi is a sign of being well-dressed and cultured. At the same time it should help India’s rural craftsmen and women to share in the country’s growing wealth and economy.  According to the article, he has dressed superstar Aishwarya Rai in homespun for two films currently in production – Ravana and Guzaarish – and the actress Vidya Balan in Paa which is due to be released in November. The nostalgia may be part of the style, but Mukherjee is very much in the new wave of Indian designers – a graduate of India’s National Institute of Technology and recipient of the Femina British Council/Times of India prize.

Fashion writers have labelled him “intellectual”, but he describes himself as a modern, practical and a socially aware businessman. It’s vital to him that the rural poor share India’s growing economy – a Gandhian concept and one that puts India right at the centre of being Indian.

His surprise hit earlier this year was the chhotu sari – the sari worn for hundreds of generations by women in the tribal areas that are woven to calf length for freedom of movement. It was, he decided, the perfect metropolitan sari for young women – long enough to give them the flowing shape, but short enough to differentiate them from their mothers and to allow them to show off their ankles and shoes.