Threads of Time Immemorial: How a 5,000-Year-Old Sari Became New York’s Latest Cultural Statement

In a city known for its towering skyscrapers and relentless pace, the New York Historical Society has devoted seven months to celebrating a garment that predates the founding of the United States by millennia: the sari.

“The New York Sari: A Journey Through Tradition, Fashion, and Identity,” which opened September 12 and runs through April 26, 2026, explores how one of the world’s oldest garments found a home in America’s most multicultural metropolis—and in doing so, tells a story of migration, resistance, and reinvention that stretches back five thousand years.

Ancient Origins: From the Indus Valley to the World

The history of sari-like drapery can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished during 2800–1800 BCE around the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.

A shawl draped on the statue of an Indus priest provides evidence that this tradition began during the Indus Valley period, according to Border&Fall, which consulted Anita Lal, founder of Good Earth, on the sari’s origins. The sari as we know it may have evolved later since it required a much longer piece of cloth, ranging from 4 to 9 yards, to drape both the lower and upper body.

The earliest known reference to the saree can be found in Rigveda, one of the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, which dates back to 1500 BC. In this text, the saree is described as a garment draped over the body and held in place by a belt, according to Pulimoottil Online.

The tradition of wrapping unstitched cloth by men and women goes back to the earliest times of the Indian Subcontinent, Border&Fall reported. The Sanskrit word “chira” referred to a length of unstitched cloth which could also be adapted as a pagdi for the head or a shawl to cover the upper body. This influenced the entire clothing style of the islands along the Indian Ocean. The sarong is an example.

A Garment Shaped by Empire and Resistance

Before the British seized India in the 18th century, the subcontinent was the world’s leading textile manufacturer and exporter, with its fabrics reaching as far as Mexico, according to historian William Dalrymple’s book “The Anarchy,” as cited in the New York Times.

After the British arrived, they replaced indigenous cotton—known as kala cotton—with seeds imported from Alabama, and decimated the local weaving industry by exporting that cotton from India to England, where it was mass produced into cloth, to be sold back to Indians, the Times reported.

Wearing saris that were handwoven in India became a form of rebellion, the Times noted. This resistance found its most dramatic expression in the summer of 1929, when Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, one of India’s foremost female freedom fighters, traveled to Berlin for a conference of the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship. India was still under British rule and had no flag. Kamaladevi and her delegates cut up their saris to create their own flag for the conference’s opening gala. “No one grudged tearing up their fineries,” she said, according to “The Art of Freedom: Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and the Making of Modern India,” by Nico Slate. “In fact, we felt free and liberated.”

The New York Connection

The exhibition traces how the sari—and those who wear it—found a home in New York City. Once seen as a marker of distance and exoticism, the sari has become woven into the city’s cultural fabric, embraced by new generations of artists, dancers, entrepreneurs, community leaders, scientists, and changemakers, according to the New York Historical Society.

“‘The New York Sari’ illuminates how a centuries-old garment continues to shape identity, artistry, and community-building across our city,” said Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of The New York Historical. “This exhibition is a celebration of the sari’s complexity—not only as a textile but as a powerful cultural symbol shaped by trade, migration, and personal expression,” according to City Life Org.

A part of the exhibit’s genesis came from a conversation among journalist S. Mitra Kalita, Historical museum CEO Louise Mirrer, and NYC Council Member Shekar Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights and is the first Indian American elected to public office in the city. Kalita had just finished helping both parents and in-laws downsize their homes and mentioned the literal hundreds of saris she didn’t know what to do with—and the weight of history within, of immigration, tradition and gender roles, according to Epicenter NYC.

Personal Stories Woven Into History

The exhibition is partially inspired by Krishnan’s mother, Dr. Lalitha Krishnan, who wore a sari to an award ceremony during her career as a pharmaceutical drug developer. Krishnan believes the sari helped his mother stand out in a room full of suits and ballgowns on a night where she was being honored for leading the creation of a drug used in hospitals nationwide to combat multi-drug resistant infections, according to QNS.

Krishnan said his mother “made a statement” by wearing a sari, adding that the garment stands as a testament to the contributions that South Asian women have made to American science and culture.

The exhibition includes an ode to Jagjit Singh, an activist working with Mahatma Gandhi who fled from India to New York after British authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in the 1920s. He opened an Indian textile and sari business on Fifth Avenue that drew notable clients, like Yul Brynner and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The exhibit features garments from prominent South Asian figures including Sudha Acharya, Executive Director of South Asian Council for Social Services, who said: “The sari is special to me as I wore it to my only daughter’s wedding reception. The event took place in Bengaluru, South India. I was complimented on this Jamawar sari from Benares which has an intricate hand-woven design that dates back to India’s Mughal era,” according to SACSS.

From Coney Island to Contemporary Art

The New York Historical showcases the deep influence that South Asians have had on the culture of New York City from the Gilded Age to the present day, beginning with the little known history of Coney Island’s first theme park and culminating with the vibrant communities that are home to the South Asian diaspora today, according to the museum.

The exhibition includes an ode to Jagjit Singh, an activist working with Mahatma Gandhi who fled from India to New York after British authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in the 1920s. He opened an Indian textile and sari business on Fifth Avenue that drew notable clients, like Yul Brynner, Eleanor Roosevelt and Hollywood costume designers. Singh leveraged his cachet with New York’s elite to continue fighting for India’s independence from afar, forming close alliances with leaders of the civil rights movement across the United States. He also lobbied Congress to pass the Luce-Cellar act in 1946, allowing South Asian immigrants to become U.S. citizens, the Times reported.

A framed, grainy photograph shows activist Gloria Steinem dressed in a sari during her trip to India in 1957. Steinem wrote in her autobiography “My Life on the Road” that during that and a later trip she learned how to tie a sari in a way that she could play tennis in and she met with Kamaladevi to study the peaceful protest tactics that formed the backbone of India’s independence movement. Steinem later incorporated many of those strategies into the 1970s feminist movement sweeping the United States, according to the Times.

Chitra Ganesh’s 2018 linocut series “Sultana’s Dream,” inspired by Rokeya Hossain’s 1905 feminist utopia, envisions a sari-clad matriarchal society that champions environmental stewardship, labor equity, and education access, the New York Historical noted.

Art Born of Struggle

For artist Shradha Kochhar, 29, the exhibition arrived at a deeply personal moment. In early September, she was in the middle of her own immigration struggle, trying to renew her visa, when she went into the Historical to install her sculpture. That day, her friends texted her to warn her that immigration officers were in Crown Heights, where she lives. The “rhetoric of, like, who’s a good immigrant and who’s a bad immigrant” was weighing on her, she said, as she put up her artwork. “I cried the whole time,” the Times reported.

Kochhar’s poofy, whipped-cream-like sculpture is made entirely of kala cotton—the indigenous variety the British sought to eliminate—that she spun by herself in the United States. The work stands next to Kamaladevi’s story on the exhibition wall, according to the Times.

A Living Tradition

“It’s like a flag that people have used to fashion stories about themselves,” said Dr. Salonee Bhaman, a historian and curator of the exhibition, the Times reported. Bhaman herself embodied the sari’s evolving identity, wearing her own floral, bronze-colored silk sari over leggings and clasping it with a gold-buckled belt, bucking the traditional method of wrapping it around the waist over a petticoat skirt.

“The journey of my family is stitched into the vibrant tapestry of New York—each style, thread, color a memory of sacrifice, resilience, and belonging,” said Kalita in a statement. “We honor these histories through The New York Sari. I am reminded that fashion is far more than fabric: it is the means by which we pass on our stories,” according to QNS.

The exhibition also spotlights Stitch with SACSS, one of SACSS’s flagship workforce development programs. This initiative empowers underserved women by teaching them stitching skills at no cost, giving them the tools and knowledge to build their own small businesses. Upon completing the program, participants receive a sewing machine, enabling them to turn their newly acquired skills into sustainable livelihoods, according to SACSS.

Subversive in the Present Moment

Though the teams at the New York Historical and the Center for Women’s History began conceptualizing the exhibition about 20 months ago, it arrives at a time of frequent anti-immigration rhetoric and crackdowns on immigrants in some American cities, the Times reported. To put up an exhibition that explores how the South Asian immigrant community shaped New York’s history is subversive, Kochhar said in an interview with the Times.

“I’m actually proud of New York Historical Society that they are featuring something this important,” said Adrienne Ingrum, a visitor at the exhibition. “It’s showing a part of our community, the people who have been here since the 1800s, that is not recognized.” The show made her want to wear a sari herself, she said. “I think it opens up what’s acceptable fashion in the city,” she added, according to the Times.

Featuring more than 50 objects, photographs, and ephemera, “The New York Sari” is curated by Salonee Bhaman, Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History and Public History, and Anna Danziger Halperin, director of the Center for Women’s History, according to the museum and City Life Org.

From a priest’s draped cloth in the Indus Valley five millennia ago to a symbol of resistance cut up for a flag in Berlin to a statement of scientific achievement at a New York awards ceremony—the sari’s journey mirrors the journeys of those who wear it. In a city built by immigrants, six to nine yards of fabric continue to carry stories of memory, identity, and belonging across oceans and generations.

Photos by Glenn Castellano. Courtesy The New York Historical. This story was aggregated by AI from several news reports and edited by American Kahani’s News Desk.