The famous ‘sungudi’ and ‘kalamkari’ designs will soon find their way into khadi saris manufactured by the Gandhigram Rural University as the institution has planned to promote the traditional attire with a twist in order to attract youngsters.
According to Mr. A Shivakumar, secretary, Gandhigram Khadi and Village Industries Public Charitable Trust, under which the products are made, the initiative has been undertaken in order to attract youngsters, enhance sales and also to sustain the products.
For this, the trust has decided to launch a new range of ‘khadi muslin saris with kalamkari and sungudi designs’ soon. Mr  Shivakumar said the trust has been reconstituted recently with textile design experts Sudha Ravi and Jegada Rajappa having been included in the board.
The new range of saris will be showcased at the Craft Council Bazaar to be held in Chennai in January. The designs have been created by experts in the respective fields and are being coloured with natural dyes. The idea is to make these saris totally eco-friendly and youngster friendly and keep them trendy.
The design and rejuvenation committee has been constituted for this purpose. As part of this new rejuvenation initiative, it was also planned to train members of self-help groups (SHG) on the tie and dye technique of sungudi and later incorporate the same in muslin saris under the guidance of the chairperson of the trustee board Gita Ram.
Khadi shirts will also get a makeover under this new initiative, where tailoring experts would be brought in to train members of the SHGs and later executed in production. The new shirts would be up for sale next January.