“I believe that there is a shift in market demand from Sari to Kurtha. This season, the demand for Sari has gone down and Kurtha comes across as more preferred women wear,” said Neelima Sharma, proprietor of Neelima Fashion Studio, City Centre. [break]
The store is popular among young people who are looking for stylish, trendy as well as traditional outfits for any occasion. The surge in the price of materials such as georgette, silk and chiffon among others in the international market has made saris expensive this festive season and traders say that this is also one of the reasons behind low volume of sales of saris during Teej.
“As these days Teej is celebrated by unmarried girls as well, they look for Kurthas instead of saris which might be one of the basic reasons for higher sales of Kurthas. And, even married women are looking for trendier outfit than the usual Sari,” added Sharma. No matter what the dress is, red is the color of this festival.
Boutique and store owners are claiming that the dressing sense of people is changing and the habit of sticking to our routine wear sari is changing over the time.
“We´ve got customers who were ready to pay more for a Kurtha than a sari this season, which made us realize that people are looking for a change in trend,” said Sharma. Saris are mostly popular in the materials like georgette, silk, royal, net, siphon and tissue.
The market at the moment is dominated by net saris. Some years back, chiffon was a more popular material than the rest.
Some people choose to buy plain saris from the market and get required embroideries done to their taste. Many shopkeepers say that the trend of custom designed saris is growing over the time.
“The demand for saris wasn´t up to our expectation. We experienced a double-digit dip while supplying saris this season,” said Rupesh Luitel of Mars Designer and Collection, Kalimati. Saris that are available in the Nepali market are usually imported from India while some are imported from Thailand, Singapore and China.
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