My long time friend, Sue Bishop also goes to Burning Man.  So this year she thought she might try wearing a salwar kameez or three.  What is a salwar kameez you ask?

Salwar Kameez is (also spelt shalwar kameez or shalwar qameez) (Hindi: सलवार कमीज, Urdu: شلوار قمیض)? It is the dress worn by both women and men in northern South Asia and Central Asia. It is a unisex dress similar in manner to shirt and pants worn by both women and men in the west, per Wikipedia.

I think of them as Indian and would not have thought they were worn in other countries, but that may well be the case.  So Sue went shopping, and here is what she found.

 Sue started her shopping in Berkeley, the two salwar kemeezes above were purchased there, and this is what she had to say about the experience.

The Berkeley shop is Roopam Saris, 1044 University.  Yelp has a lot of negative reviews based on customer service but, even though I wasn’t shopping their high end merchandise, I was treated very well.  The daughter who helped me volunteered to ask her father for a further discount on a sale item that I bought (the gold and red one).  Here the largest size was 52 (bust measurement).  The 52 in the casual (poly) suit was too big for me.  The 52 in the “party” suit I bought (the blue suit) is a nice loose right.  My bust measurement is 44, so a 50 should be about right for a loose fitting top.  However, the gold and red, which is a 50, needed a few more inches which I added.  Many are sold as sleeveless with short sleeves included that can be sewn on, as I did with the gold one.  The pants are of nearly infinite size.  I looked at Saree Palace nearby which, while very large, has a limited number of 48-52s.

 

My best recommendation is 786shop.com.  They have an enormous selection and they strongly recommend that every customer have their pieces made to fit at no extra cost.  The suit I ordered was made to my exact measurements.  They have a very thorough custom measurements page.  I wanted a loose fitting garment so I added an inch or two at the bust and hips and got a great fit.  I could choose sleeve length, pants type and overall fit.  My choice was from the Designer Cotton Lawn collection and was one of the most expensive at $117.  Many in this collection are made using pre-printed panels so they have a maximum width of 52 inches.  I don’t think most of the other styles have this limitation. There are cotton lawn options in their casual collection that cost under $50.

I was nervous about buying from a Pakistani website but I followed it for year and saw that it was looking more and more like a mature business.  The functionality on the site is pretty good and they responded promptly to emails and delivered the finished suit as promised.