Asari is fashion guru David Shilling's vision of "what every modern British girl should have in her wardrobe". "The sari is sexy," pronounces Shilling, long celebrated as one of Britain's most innovative designers. He has just made a nine-inch fine china figurine of a woman in a sari for Coalport, part of the Wedgwood group. Called "Sari Sensation", this limited edition of 1,000 will sell for £200.

ODE TO THE SARI: Shilling (above) and his china figurine

The outrageous hats Shilling once designed for women who went to Ascot have ended up in museums. He is now focusing on sculpture. "As far as I know, this is the first time there is a china figure in a sari," confirms Carol Baxendale-Potter, marketing director of Coalport, a firm founded in 1750. Shilling spent many happy hours "fastening and unfastening women in saris", purely in the interest of research, of course. "My sari, which is in pale turquoise, is not traditional, nor is it non-traditional," Shilling points out. His next venture is to design a whole sari ensemble, complete with hat. "It will be difficult but it is a challenge," he mutters softly.

Name Game

Sushila Anand, daughter of the famous Indian novelist, Mulk Raj Anand, has discovered some of the pains of authorship. When her biography of Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Sikh Maharajah, was first published in 1980 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1980, her name and that of her co-author, Michael Alexander, both appeared on the book. Mysteriously, her name was dropped from the early cover when Phoenix Press recently republished the biography. "I was angry and upset," she says. Phoenix Press took Anand's point and put her name back on the cover-in smaller type. It is understood that the co-authors are no longer on good terms.

Dance of the Healers

CROWD PULLER: An Akademi presentation

In Westminster Chelsea Hospital about 40 dancers of Akademi in London gave a multimedia performance. The procession of dancers, musicians and artists wound their way through hospital corridors calling people to participate, illumined by a myriad of lights and sounds. Enhanced by visual and video artists the performance was the story of the Ramayana, a major Hindu epic. Bringing the patients directly into the artistic process, it was hoped, would increase their access to the arts and help alleviate the isolation they felt, all along stimulating and invigorating them, contributing to their recovery and well being.

Chance to Trade Races

In a two part series, BBC documentary Trading Races sought to get under the skin of the British public, quite literally, as subjects were given the opportunity to change their race. With the aid of prosthetics, a wig and the deft hand of a make up artist, Safina, a Bangladeshi psychology student from Birmingham transformed into a white girl.

"I think skin colour matters," says Safina "... I want to see if it changes my own attitude."

Set to work in a pie and mash shop as her Asian self one day and in the guise of a white girl the next, Safina found her experience significantly altered.

"(As a white girl) I didn't get no looks, no vibes at all ... I blended in ... As myself I was so much more aware. It was so white in there ... I felt uncomfortable, I kept thinking 'what are these people really thinking'."

More convincing yet was Carolyne, a rosy cheeked English nurse hailing from a predominantly white mining community. Browned up and reinvented as a salwar wearing Asian woman residing temporarily midst Sheffield's Asian community, Carolyne was invited to contemplate her own prejudices. "I've started questioning myself-am I racist? Maybe I am, and I don't like that. It's not a comfortable feeling at all."

More sensational than insightful, the programme reached its inevitable conclusion as each gladly returned to their original identities. "The way we intermingle is easing, but there are still a lot of barriers," said Carolyne. "I think we need to keep the difference and appreciate the differences more."