Mother Teresa’s order copyrights her blue and white sari

Mother Teresa’s order copyrights her blue and white sari

Copyright: Mother Teresa's habit has been patented 

Mother Teresa's religious order has copyrighted her iconic blue and white sari design as it launches a fight against those imitating it across the globe. 

The Missionaries of Charity has patented the style worn by the saint as she helped thousands in the slums of Calcutta, India. 

The late nun's charity says it will fight 'unscrupulous and unfair usage' of the design worldwide - a warning to anyone wearing or making copies of the famous garment.

The habit was designed by Mother Teresa when she went to the streets in 1948 to serve the poor. It is white with three blue stripes, the outer stripe being larger than the inner two. 

The Catholic News Agency reported the copyright was granted on the same day as Mother Teresa's canonizatio n on September 4, 1016.   

Intellectual property attorney Biswajit Sarkar said 'the blue-designed border on the sari worn by nuns of Missionaries of Charity was recognized as Intellectual Property for the organization on September 4, 2016, the day the Mother was canonized.'

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'The Missionaries of Charity does not believe in publicity and as such it was not publicized,' he said, while stressing that 'we are witnessing unscrupulous and unfair usage of the design across the globe' and so are trying 'to spread awareness among people about the trademark.'  

 Mother Teresa's blue border pattern 'is a distinctive symbolic identity of (the) Missionaries of Charity under the concept of color trade mark protection' 

Mother Teresa's blue border pattern 'is a distinctive symbolic identity of (the) Missionaries of Charity under the concept of color trade mark protection,' Sarkar said. 

The sisters sent their application to the Trade Marks Registry of the Indian government in December 2013.  

In an explanation of the meaning of the saris on the Missionaries of Charity website, Sr. Gertrude, the second nun to join the Missionaries of Charity after their foundation and who is since deceased, reflected on the symbolism of the design and how it came about.

She wrote that when she joined Mother Teresa April 26, 1949, 'it was then that for the very first time in my life I saw her i n her white sari with three blue borders.'

'And what a shock it was for me â€" Mother Teresa, a Loreto nun, my Headmistress was now dressed like a poor Bengali woman in a simple white cotton sari with three blue borders!' she said.

The shops where the nuns bought their first habits sold the white sari with either red, green or blue borders, and 'Mother selected the blue border, for we associate the color blue with Mother Mary. It stands for purity.'

'Also in those days women who swept the streets used to wear a similar kind of a sari,' she said. 'So Mother adopted a religious dress that was both symbolic and practical â€" it not only helped to identify ourselves with the poor, but was also suitable to Calcutta's searing climate.'

The sisters initially paid about 2.50 rupees ($0.04) for their saris, but once the order began to grow, it became hard to get them in large numbers. 

 

 

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