Clothing India

 In today’s world we associate what we wear with personal choice. However, choice is always inevitably constrained by cultural conventions. Most of us want to assert our individuality through our choice of what to wear, but at the same time do not wish to appear too far removed from sartorial norms. Few of us want to stand out like Grayson Perry and, unless our work demands it, we are also averse to wearing a uniform or dressing exactly like others. In our style of clothing, we try and strike a balance between homogeneity and eccentricity.

Clothing styles are often associated with modesty. Clothes are about concealing parts of the body that are deemed inappropriate to expose in public. Not only do different cultures, have very different evaluations of what is decent dress, but ideas of modesty change over time.

Emma Tarlow discusses the traditional attire of Juáng women, a tribe from Odisha in Eastern India, in her excellent book Clothing Matters. Juáng women traditionally went topless and wore little other than a very scanty girdle and beads. This skimpy dress offended the colonial sense of decency. However, by supplying the tribeswomen with saris, a more decorous style of clothing in the British view, colonial officials claimed that they were bringing a more civilised culture to the Juáng. It is of note that the colonial powers imposed the wearing of saris, and not a more Western style of dress. As Tarlow points out:

[The British] felt it their duty to civilise barbaric natives … It was with such notions in mind that Captain Johnstone clothed the ‘naked savages’ of the Juang hills. But on the other hand the British did not want these natives to be too civilised.

Tarlow 1996: 39

In other words, in the colonial view, clothing choices can signify barbarity and primitiveness or civilisation and progress.

How we dress will influence how other people will respond to us. Carol Delaney cites research which suggests:

Dressing a newborn in blue begins a sequence of interaction that is different from the one experienced by a baby dressed in pink … The colour acts as a cue or stimulus that influences how people behave toward the child

Stone 1995 in Delaney 2004: 330

A Hindu wedding

We perform multiple roles in our everyday life, and therefore how we perform is at least in part determined by the context of performance. For example, leisure and work are often different types of performance, and therefore demand a different sartorial style. There is also often an expectancy to dress in a particular way for special occasions, such as weddings and funerals

Dress is always an ensemble. A combination of particular items of clothing creates an outfit. What items combine to create an acceptable ensemble is in part determined by social norms of dress. There is no reason why I should not wear military boots, floral shorts, a dinner jacket, and a fez. This combination would conform to society’s ideas of decency, but would not be regarded as a coherent outfit, and would be considered as rather eccentric. In other words, dress has a sort of syntax, which makes clothing choices intelligible to others.

Whilst most of us conform to the cultural norms, varying these norms slightly to assert a sense of individuality, others flout the conventions of dress as a form of resistance. The flouting of dress conventions is often associated with subcultures, such as punk. Dick Hebdige writes:

The meaning of subculture is, then, always in dispute, and style is the area in which the opposing definitions clash with most dramatic force.

Hebdige 1988: 3

This dramatic clash is most apparent in in subcultural choices of dress and are visual statements of resistance to prevailing norms. On the other hand, traditional modes of dress are associated with conformity with the status quo.

The sari has a long history. There is evidence that the sari’s origin can traced back to the Indus Valley Civilisation – a culture that flourished between 2,600 and 1,900 BCE in the northwest of the South Asian subcontinent. The sari is essentially a long piece, of unstitched cloth. It can be anywhere 3.2 metres (3.5 yards) and 8.2 metres (9 yards).

It is easy to conceive of the sari as an unchanging and relatively homogenous mode of dress in comparison to the dynamic and diverse stitched couture of European cultures. However, Mukulika Banerjee and Daniel Miller assert that the sari is primarily a ‘lived garment’.

The sari is not some antique or folk costume, but is instead a living and effective alternative to the stitched clothing of the West.

Banerjee and Miller 2003:3

A good example of this potential to express a sense of individuality is Aunty Skates. Oorbee Roy – a Toronto based mother of two started skateboarding at the age of 43. She started posting images of herself skateboarding in a sari on TikTok.

When I get on a skateboard, it is the most liberating feeling I’ve ever experienced … And when I get in a sari and I start flying in the bowl, it’s just really fun. I feel very lucky that I found skateboarding.

Roy cited in Stump 2021

There are many different ways to drape the sari. Different draping styles are often associated with different regions of the subcontinent. However, what is referred to as the Nivi style is now the most widely used. It is pleated at the front and draped over the left shoulder. This style is attributed to Jyananda Nandini (1850–1941), the sister-in-law of the Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. Coming from a privileged and liberal background Nandini would sometimes accompany her husband in public including attending gatherings at British homes.

Most draping styles of the sari exposed too much flesh for colonial perceptions of decency, and although many men adopted European modes of dress, women tended to retain Indian styles of clothing. Nandini developed the Nivi style of drape to be acceptable to the colonial powers and yet be distinctly Indian. Many of the women who became involved in the Independence movement, were seen on public platforms and often appeared in press coverage adopted the Nivi style. This style has come to be regarded as the national dress for Indian women.

By the end of the 19^th century cheap lithographs of the Hindu deities were becoming popular. The artist Ravi Varma (1848–1906), whose paintings were reproduced in print and widely circulated, depicted the Hindu goddesses, including Mother India, wearing saris in the Nivi style

There are more than a hundred ways to drape a sari and, in this sense, the sari becomes the person wearing it

Agarwal 2023: 92

As well as different draping styles, saris are made in a wide variety of fabrics, colours patterns and weaves. Often these distinct styles are associated with particular regions of India. Perhaps the most famous and sought after saris are from the town of Banaras (also called Vārānasī). Banarasi saris are hand woven in silk with gold threads and have a distinctive border.

The sari is an incredibly expressive form of dress, not only as an ensemble but in the way that it is worn. The sari is normally associated with modesty and social mores that determine what is considered appropriate mode of dress in public spaces. For example, many women will pull the pallu, the long loose end of the sari normally draped over the shoulder, over their heads when in public. The pallu can also be used to veil the face to hide emotions etc.

However, the sari is an ambiguous mode of dress. It can be utilised as a display of decorum and can also signify eroticism.

The sari is the perfect garment to accentuate this body, its drape drawing attention to the ‘acceptable’ erotic zones of the breast, waist and hips even while covering them

Dwyer 2000: 150

This erotic potential of the sari is most obvious in Bollywood films. Particularly in the wet sari sequence in which the erotic body is fully clothed, but totally sensualised. A good example of this is in the song and dance sequence I Love You in Shekhar Kapur’s 1987 film Mr India

It is sometimes suggested that jeans are more modern than the salwar kameez which is more progressive than the sari. However, the sari is, as Rachel Dwer (2000: 146) observes, ‘always a fashion item’.  

The March 2022 cover of Vogue India featured the model Laksmi Vernon wearing a bright red sari. Inside the magazine there is an article entitled ‘The Sari Holds Our Secrets’ illustrated with photographs of Vernon wearing a variety of different saris.

There is a renewed interest among designers seeking to move the sari beyond its staid form and reimagine it for a younger, urban female wearer

Malhotra 2023: 22

Traditional clothing for Indian men is also unstitched.
It is not uncommon to see men wearing a lungi or a dhoti, particularly in rural areas, both of which are unstitched cloths. The lungi is normally about 80 inches (200cm) and is often coloured and patterned, whereas the dhoti is normally about 15 ft (4.5) metres and is generally white, although it often has a narrow border. The lungi tends to be a more casual item of clothing and the dhoti is more often used in ritual contexts. Whilst there is no absolute prohibition on stitched clothing, it is often accepted that unstitched clothing is more ritually pure. Consequently, often Brahmin priests will wear dhotis in temples..

A brahmin priest performing a ritual blessing on the banks of the Ganga at Banaras. (My photo)

Gender identity is increasingly accepted as fluid and non-binary across most parts of the world, including India. In 2016 the Facebook group Transgender India published a series of photographs of gender nonconforming individuals, many of them dressed in saris, with the title ‘I am not a hijra’.

Himanshu Verma, who identifies as a man but also wears saris suggests:

The sari goes beyond gender. In some ways, the sari is also beyond politics – at least for me. It’s a garment of self-expression and aesthetic pleasure that allows me to engage with India’s textile history.

Verma cited in Khanchandini 2023: 97
 

More recently the Gulabi Gang (The Pink Gang), a group of women formed in 2006 by Sampat Pal Devi in Uttar Pradesh all wear pink saris and are often pictured carrying bamboo staves. The gang was initially formed to combat domestic violence when Pal witnessed a man beating his wife, but now campaigns on wider issues of social justice.

Pal’s decision to dress herself and her fellow gang members in saris made a difference to how they were perceived. In those who had reason to be afraid, the Gulabi Gang inspired fear – but as news of the gang spread across India, the image of the women in their saris, with bamboo sticks in hand and ferocious expressions stamped on their faces, inspired sympathy and admiration

Faleiro 2023: 118