The beauty and richness of our grandma’s and mum’s sarees are unparalleled. Check out Vimor in Victoria Layout that has been selling antique temple sarees since 1974. What’s more, they also revive heritage sarees, so if you’ve been trying to get a replica of grandma’s vintage Kanjeevaram, look no further! For 45 years now, this bungalow in Victoria Layout has been the seat of handloom revival like no other.
Founded by Chimy Nanjappa, aka the grand old lady of handloom, Vimor (‘pure’ in Indonesian) started out in the guestroom of the bungalow, with Chimy selling ancient temple sarees out of the trunk. Eventually, word got around, the store grew in popularity, and today the boutique is run by Chimi along with her grandchildren. Once the family ran out of antique temple pieces, they decided to venture into revival sarees, so now you can walk into the store with grandma’s favourite saree and get Vimor to translate the memories into an almost identical wearable piece for you!
They try to revive sarees and their designs regardless of the area of origin, so you can find pieces from Old Banaras, Chettinad, Rajasthan, Konrad, and many other small villages around the country. Vimor has its own range of designs as well. Pure cotton, silk, and pure zari silk sarees are available from the starting price of INR 1,500 onwards. The revival sarees start from INR 1,900 onwards and even include re-created sarees from Indira Gandhi’s collection. Talk about heritage! The best part is, each piece has a fascinating little backstory to it, which Muddaya (Chimy Nanjappa’s daughter) will be happy to run you through, hence, your visit to Vimor will be unlike any other saree retailers.