“I Repurposed My Achama’s Kasavu Saree Into A Lehenga,” Says Heirloom Bride Anushka Karekadan

The next chapter in our continued series Threads of Tradition belongs to Anushka Karekadan, who brought her late grandmother, or Achama, into her wedding celebrations through a saree she had loved and worn herself. After 11 years together, Anushka married her best friend Piyush in February 2026 at Zuri White Sands in Goa, with a destination wedding by the sea that brought together their different cultural influences.

For the first event of the celebrations, Anushka chose one of her grandmother’s traditional white and gold Kasavu sarees and transformed it into a lehenga for her Haldi. The leftover fabric was used for her blouse and even incorporated into Piyush’s dhoti. Her grandmother had passed away just months before the wedding, making the look a special way of having her presence felt.

Here, Anushka tells us about growing up with Achama, the decision to give her much-loved saree another life, and why she believes an heirloom becomes more meaningful when it is worn, lived in and carried forward.

Manifest (M): Which wedding function did you wear the heirloom piece for, and what was the look you created around it?

Anushka Karekadan (AK): I wore my grandmother’s saree for the very first event of our destination wedding, my Haldi. Ours was a true Two States wedding, and with the extravagant North Indian celebrations naturally taking centre stage, I really wanted my South Indian side to have its own moment to shine.

My grandmother was incredibly proud of her roots and always carried them with such grace, so I couldn’t think of a more meaningful way to begin my wedding celebrations. I repurposed her traditional Kasavu saree into a lehenga, keeping the feel of her original saree intact while making it feel more like me.

It was my way of bringing together her tradition and my personal style and, most importantly, starting my wedding with a piece of her right there with me.

M: Tell us about the heirloom piece. Whose was it, and what memories do you associate with it?

AK: The saree belonged to my grandmother, my Achama. She always wore traditional Kasavu sarees, especially for Vishu and Onam, and was very proud of her South Indian roots. This particular saree is so old that we don’t even have a photograph of her wearing it, which somehow makes it even more special.

It wasn’t something that had been carefully kept aside as an heirloom. It was simply one of her loved and well-worn sarees.

Some of my earliest memories of her are of her dressed in a white Kasavu saree, with a different border almost every year! She was quite the shopaholic and absolutely did not believe in repeating outfits for special occasions. I definitely get that from her!

But my memories of Achama are not just about festivals. I grew up with her, and for a huge part of my childhood, she was the one who took care of everything, from doing my hair every morning and getting me ready for school to making my meals, giving me baths and putting me to bed with her stories.

So this saree means much more to me than a memory of something she wore. It holds my childhood, the feeling of being completely loved and looked after by her, and so much of the woman who helped raise me.

M: Did you preserve the saree in its original form, or was it redesigned or repurposed for your wedding?

AK: I did repurpose it. We turned Achama’s saree into a lehenga, and I loved that we were able to use almost every part of it. The leftover fabric was used for the canvas of my blouse, and some little pieces even made their way into my husband’s dhoti, which made the whole look feel even more special and connected.

The saree was old and well-loved, so the fabric was delicate. Once the designer understood what it meant to me, she handled it very thoughtfully. We were very conscious of preserving the fabric and making sure there were no unnecessary cuts or tears.

I wanted it to still feel like her saree, just reimagined into something that felt like me. Seeing something Achama had once worn transformed into my Haldi lehenga, and then having a little piece of it become part of Piyush’s outfit too, made it feel less like we had altered an heirloom and more like we had given it another chapter.

M: How did you retain the original character of the Kasavu while making the look feel like you?

AK: A traditional Kasavu saree is all about that beautiful white with its signature gold border, and I really wanted to retain that identity. It was quite the U-turn from my original Haldi vision. I had initially imagined myself in a colourful, flashy, Papa Don’t Preach-inspired look with all the drama!

But once I decided to wear Achama’s saree, I didn’t want to take away from what made it so distinctly hers and so distinctly South Indian. So we stayed true to the original white and gold and worked around it, rather than trying to completely change it.

Turning it into a lehenga already gave it a more contemporary feel. I opted for a strapless blouse and skipped the dupatta altogether, which gave the look a subtle nod to the traditional South Indian pavada-and-blouse silhouette while still feeling fresh and bridal. I also wore fresh flowers in my hair for that unmistakable South Indian touch.

For me, it was never about modernising the saree so much that you could no longer recognise where it came from. I wanted someone looking at me to see both of us in it, Achama in the white and gold Kasavu she loved, and me in the way I chose to wear it.

M: What was your family’s reaction to seeing you wear the piece?

AK: At first, my family was quite confused when I started asking everyone to find photographs of my late grandmother, particularly ones in sarees. I had kept the whole idea to myself, so nobody really understood what I was trying to do until the day of my Haldi.

When they finally saw me in the lehenga and realised it was made from Achama’s saree, it was an incredibly emotional moment. Suddenly, it wasn’t just my outfit. We all knew what it meant. In our own little way, we had managed to include her in the celebrations she had looked forward to the most.

Her biggest wish was to see me get married. I had to say goodbye to her just a few months before the wedding, but I have never felt like her blessings left me.

So seeing a piece of her there with me meant something to every single one of us. I had spent so much time thinking about how incomplete my wedding would feel without her, but that morning, wearing her saree, I felt surrounded by her love and blessings. In my heart, she hadn’t missed it at all. She was there, just in a different way.

And if I had to do it all over again, I would wear her saree without a second thought.

M: In a world of custom couture and new bridal collections, why was it important for you to include something with a past in your wedding wardrobe? Do you think heirloom dressing is becoming a new expression of luxury?

AK: I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want to follow wedding trends blindly. I wanted every part of my wedding to feel personal to us, and if I could set a little trend of my own along the way, even better!

There is something incredibly special about wearing a piece that already has a life and a story before it reaches you. You can buy something beautiful from a store or have a designer make something completely new for you, but you can’t recreate the memories that come with an heirloom.

Achama’s saree was one of one, not because nobody could make another Kasavu saree, but because nobody could make hers. My lehenga had my grandmother’s history, my childhood, my heritage and now a part of my own wedding story woven into it. No new collection could have given me that.

I do think heirloom dressing is becoming a beautiful expression of luxury, especially when brides make these pieces their own rather than simply preserving them away. Heirlooms are meant to be cherished, loved and lived in again.

M: Do you hope to pass this piece on to a future generation? What story would you want it to carry with it?

AK: Without a doubt! I would love for this piece to keep travelling through our family. Maybe one day it will go to a daughter of mine, or perhaps one of my sisters will want to wear it or pass it on to her child.

I would love to see it worn again and given another life, but with one thing always intact: it will forever be Achama’s saree. No matter how many times it is reimagined or who wears it next, I would want her name and her story to stay with it.

More than the fabric itself, I want us to pass down the story of the wonderful woman who first wore it, how deeply she loved her family, how incredibly loved she was in return, and how much of her lives on in all of us.

For me, that would be the most beautiful legacy: for it to never become just an old piece tucked away in a box, or an outfit whose story eventually gets forgotten. I want someone generations from now to still be able to say, “This was Achama’s saree.”