Devisha Kumari Singh has a sari for every day of the year

“The first time I truly felt like a woman was when I wore a sari for the first time at 15,” says Devisha Kumari Singh. She was at Wellington College in England, one of five student delegates representing Mayo College, Ajmer, at a conference. “I still remember I had lime-green braces on my teeth, but I finally felt like a grown-up,” she laughs. Sixteen years later, the 31-year-old brand consultant, who lives between Jaipur and London, has made the sari an everyday sartorial choice. She wears them to weddings and pujas, but also to dinners, fashion shows, on nights out with friends, museum visits, and everywhere else one might default to jeans and a top.

The ease, in part, comes from growing up in a Rajput household in the Pink City, where she watched the women in her family don saris every day of their lives. “My style has very obviously been shaped by my mum,” says Singh, adding, “And my nani was as glamorous as they come. She’d even change her jewellery after every meal, and it always had to match.” Today, nothing makes her feel more confident and sexier than a sari. “They’ve become my armour and my icebreaker,” she says, noting that wearing one changes the way she carries herself.

Over the years, Singh has filled two wooden cupboards, three trunks, and a nostalgic Godrej almirah with petticoats, blouses, and anywhere between 200 to 300 saris. “I’m most thankful to my mum for instilling this love for saris and for all the ones I’ve inherited from her,” she says. Her collection primarily comprises chiffon and silk, with the occasional georgette and tissue net, and includes some of her mother’s campiest Satya Paul pieces from the ’80s and 2000s: leopard print, digitally screen-printed horses, full verses of English poetry emblazoned on the pallu, and a pink lipstick-print sari that Singh was given to wear for her school graduation. “My mum preserves things beautifully, but once she lends me a sari it becomes mine,” she says.

Her favourite, she tells me even before I have the chance to ask, is the one she wore to the British Museum Pink Ball in 2025, which was co-chaired by Indian arts patron and businesswoman Isha Ambani and museum director Nicholas Cullinan. Collaborating with London-based designer Saloni Lodha, Singh helped design the label’s first sari: a hot-pink leopard-print silk number paired with a customised puff-sleeved blouse. “The sari was a culmination of who I was at age 30, because I do think hot-pink leopard print is who I am at my core,” she reflects.

When her best friend Lady Violet Manners married Viscount William Garnock in England last summer, Singh served as maid of honour in a mauve chiffon sari designed by her mother. “While Violet’s sisters were both wearing custom Alessandra Rich dresses, she asked if I would wear a sari and I was so touched,” she beams. “The reception was held at the Rose Garden at Belvoir Castle, so my mum hand-drew roses for the pattern, with monotone glass beadwork and a scalloped edge,” she explains. She completed her look with a brooch—an accessory that has now become a staple, which she often picks up on walks down London’s Portobello Road.

Back home in Rajasthan, there’s never a dearth of reasons to wear a sari—not that Singh needs one. The seasons, too, make the decision for her. She and her mother work closely with Jodhpur-based master dyer and Padma Shri awardee Mohammed Tayab Khan, who has helped preserve the instantly recognisable leheriya and bandhani art forms. For Sawan, there’s Samdar leheriya, a rainbow tie-dye that moves from pastel green to blue to pink. For Diwali, navy or black, worn in mourning for Rajput-clan members lost in battle. And for Fagun, around Holi, there’s Faganiya leheriya, which shifts from egg blue to red. “There’s something so beautiful that we’re still carrying on these age-old traditions,” she remarks. “Maybe the blouses have gotten a bit shorter and sexier, but the colours remain the same.”

Although, Singh rarely goes quite that short herself. “In Rajasthan, we typically wear a long blouse that touches the petticoat,” she explains. “I usually go for a puffed sleeve and a sweetheart neckline.” Her experimentation happens elsewhere: she might swap the blouse with a sequinned or bedazzled corset, shift the pleats off-centre to avoid adding bulk at the midriff, with one pleat placed neatly at the back, or have a shorter pallu flowing loosely across an arm or over her shoulder. “And when it comes to jewellery, you can’t go wrong with pearls—pink pearls in particular, especially when paired with chiffon,” she continues, nodding to the combination popularised by the late Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur.

For Singh, the sari has long stopped being a garment she reaches for only when an invitation explicitly calls for one. Whether she’s going to a wedding, a puja, a polo match, or a party, the sari often takes the place of the regular dress, salwar kurta, or top and trousers outfit. She wishes more women of her age would embrace it the same way. “I think we could work it into our lives a little more instead of saving them only for special occasions. Yes, it’s an important piece of clothing, but we also need to demystify it,” she proclaims.

Her advice for beginners? Start with easier fabrics and learn how to drape one yourself or just go to your local tailor and have it pre-draped and stitched. “You can slip right in,” she concludes, “There’s no shame in that.”