Keeping with its promise to revisit the beautiful, Heritage old Paithani weaves, this year again the biggest, annual New Wave Paithani Festival is back and how..! The 29th year is all set to take the saree lovers on a mystical journey by presenting a collection of paithani sarees which are as old as 75 years..!! This year the 5-day festival has started from 31st of Oct - 4th Nov, much at the onset of the grand diwali celebrations and is all set to be a treat for the saree lovers. The Exhibition houses pre independence era Paithani saree along with 250 variants of Paithanis ranging from Rs. 8500/- to 3 lacs. Shri. Actor Bharat Daabholkar, Hotelier Mr Vitthal Kamath, American Actor J. Brandon Hill, Mr. Demeke Atnafu Ambulo, Consul General, Ethiopia, Mr. Lutfor Rehman (Deputy High Commissioner Bangladesh), along with Mr. and Mrs. Kiran Shantaram, Diplomats from China, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, inaugurated the 29th Edition of New Wave Paithani festival.

Ms. Sannidha Bhide, Festival Director, New Wave Paithani shares, "We have actually reached out to masses and collected original Paithani Sarees from individuals across Maharashtra. We have a 75 year old Paithani saree from a weaver family. She further shares, “The silk yarn is woven in such a way that the sari shows a kaleidoscopic effect as it catches the light. It usually takes a master weaver an entire day to weave just an inch of this material. A single sari can take a year and a half to complete. New Wave Paithani each year thus presents the latest trends, designs, colours thus the old traditional ones and the new patterns attempted by the weavers from Yeola.” Further she adds, “We also have, Late V Shantaram’s wife Jayshree Shantaram’s custom made real gold Paithani Saree which was gifted by her Daughter’s in laws. It is a 53 year old saree which we will on display at the festival.”

Vitthal Kamath, Renowed Hotelier shares, “This exhibition is throwing light on art, culture and tradition together. This 3000 old paithani was born in the Raja and Maharaja era. This should reach all over the world”.

The five-day New Wave Paithani Festival also offers 40 various exhibiters from across the country offering different materials, accessories, hand-made bags, clutches and purses and different Handloom Sarees like Chanderi, Maheshwari, Orisa Silk, Banarai, Kantha, Kosa, Ilkal, Rajasthani, South Silk, Kolkata, Kashmiri and much more. There will be stalls of various NGO’s too.

The New Wave Paithani Exhibition was founded by the Late. Saroj Dhananjay in 1989 with a vision to create a clean direct market for Paithani sarees for weavers of Yeola, a village near Nashik, Maharashtra. Paithani is a hand woven saree which came into existence hundreds of years ago at Yeola - hometown of traditional Paithani Sarees. She planned on doing this by hosting an exhibition ‘New Wave Paithani’, on annual basis in Mumbai. Hope this festival helps in reaching out to buyers and helps them in identifying genuine paithani sarees from the power loom products available in the market.

29th edition of 'New Wave Paithani Festival',31st Oct – 4th Nov 2018, 11am – 8pm, Ravindra Natya Mandir, Prabhadevi.