The motif here is a contemporary Assamese kingkhap on tussar-muga, both wild silks. Once associated with royalty, it has over time evolved with reference to materials, designs, and drapes.
"Although art which satisfies the originality requirements of copyright law can undoubtedly be reproduced on sarees and although sarees can be designed so that they are, as a whole, ‘original’ and protectable, the vast majority of sarees made in India are not original in the sense that copyright law would require them to be to merit protection. Their makers do not plagiarise each other's ideas in the way that Western paradigms imagine plagiarism but they do tend to draw upon inherited community motifs to design contemporary sarees.
The iconic kingkhap motif seen on [mekhela sadors and] sarees from Assam, demonstrates this phenomenon. Early renditions of the motif, associated with the Ahoms who ruled the area between the 13th and 19th centuries, are believed to have featured a stylized rendition of the Ngi Ngao Kham, a mythical creature associated with Ahom royalty, which looks like an amalgam of a dragon and a lion. The motif was usually woven into muga silk with extra weft. The muga silk tradition has lived on but, over time, the motif has found its way not only on to paat and eri silk weaves but also on to cotton weaves. Many iterations of the motif, even in times long gone, seem to have portrayed lions leading to the belief, in some quarters, that the original motif itself had always featured lions. Whether the motif initially portrayed a mythical creature or an earthly one, what is indisputable is that over time, it has evolved. Contemporary kingkhap motifs tend to portray a variety of animals including elephants and peacocks in pairs with the only constant being that each animal faces the other within a frame shaped like a peepal leaf. The structure of the kingkhap motif is unmistakable even though there may be significant differences between one rendition of it and the next and, that being the case, it is extremely unlikely that it would be possible to establish a legitimate copyright claim over any one rendition especially if, in doing so, a heritage design would become privatised." *
In terms of drapes, the Assamese have traditionally worn the two-piece mekhela sador although the saree is now common too. What is particularly interesting though is that the borders of Assamese sadors and sarees tend to be sewn on separately, and the hem of the mekhela, the lower skirt-like piece of the mekhela sador, has changed over time. Some of us have distinct memories of women of our grandmothers' generation insisting on broad hems, now rarely seen, which would serve the same purpose as the fall of a saree protecting the part closest to the ground and serving as a completely invisible class marker — when it came to materials like muga, only the wealthy could afford broad hems.
* Quote from: Sarees: Culture, Commerce, Constitutionalism, lawatters.in