Fashion
20th Century’s sunshine sector

In the 20th century Indian fashions have swung from the traditional to the western and now seem to be going back to their roots with leading designers re-elevating the textile craftsman to the lofty status he enjoyed in the pre-British era, says Manisha Diveshwar.

AN old man peered through his spectacles at the charkha he was spinning. Clad only in a loin-cloth, he spun, thread by thread, inch by inch, what was to become India’s most eloquent symbol of freedom.

The khadi that Gandhiji wove became a unique and effective form of protest, a gift that helped rediscover the rich textile heritage and the diversity and depth in the weaves and crafts of India.

It was a process of re-discovery. Over the years, the British worked on a plan of altering India’s textile trade and changed its role from the largest supplier of textiles to the world to the largest importer of English cloth. Writes leading designer Ritu Kumar in her book, Costumes and Textiles of Royal India," A century of colonial rule rang a death knell to traditionally produced Indian fabrics which almost went extinct."

Gandhiji’s master stroke of elevating the charkha to a national stature was not just a symbolic protest but also showcased the rich textile heritage of India which, over the years, had been systematically plagiarised by the British who began replacing the skills of Indian handicraft workers with cheap imitations made in the mills of Birmingham.

The charkha changed all that and once again the Indian textiles started to get revived. So much so, 50 years on, today, India is now being considered a storehouse of designs by leading couturiers of the world. No other country has on offer the variety of fabrics, weaves and crafts as India. It is not surprising that these are being sought after by designers in the world’s fashion capitals like Paris, London and New York.

The Indian fashion scene has evolved at breakneck speed in the last decade of this century. Though very much a part of the lifestyles at the turn of the century, during the Raj days fashion used to be the exclusive domain of the aristocracy.

The complete adoption of Western dress occurred only in the beginning of the 20th century when the Indian royalty changed its attire. Ritu Kumar writes, "The British idea of civilised dress codes caused a crisis of identity which unfortunately shifted India’s royal family’s preference for foreign fabrics, and patronage to its weavers was withdrawn."

The colonial influence

By the beginning of the 20th century, maharajas and nawabs had begun to incorporate European styles in their poshaks. For example, at state functions, they wore British coronation robes duly decorated with stars and medals held together with cords and jewelled broaches on their traditional clothing. Interestingly, the turban, topee and jootie still remained.

The zenana, however, continued to be in purdah. Her zardozi ghaghras and duputtas handworked with beads and jewels, duly complemented the heavy brocade and gota on sarees with intricately designed jewellery.

By the 1920s, the younger princes were beginning to adopt completely western wear, having given up their sherwanis, achkans angarkahas and jamas. The queens and princesses maintained their traditional attire for the simple fact that their husbands were interacting socially with the British and their colourful, heavy ghaghras were a perfect foil for the lighter, western-style dresses the men wore.

In the late 1930s when women started to break loose from the traditional clothes, in came the formal saree. The fashion statement was again made by the then queens and princesses led by Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur whose chiffon sarees, with or without borders and delicate jewellery, became a craze with women.

Comical ensemble

With passing years, the babus too had a change of mindset about clothes. Out went the kurta and in came the stiff white cotton shirt with cuffs worn over a dhoti, a dark coat, white socks, shoes and an umbrella. This completed what Ritu Kumar calls a "Comical ensemble".

The result of this predilection for western wear was that traditional techniques of patterning, spinning and weaving by master craftsmen began dying. To an extent these masters had also themselves to blame as they jealously guarded the secrets of their craft and never taught them to outsiders.

The result was that the cheap initiations from Britain virtually snuffed out exclusive Indian craftsmanship in textiles. The traditional designs of Srinagar, Varanasi, Surat Murshidabad and Ahmedabad began to get mass produced in England. Even the stunning Kashmiri shawls were imitated in Edinburgh and Norwich with the help of modern machines and the original lost out to competition by the mid-twentieth century.

Ritu Kumar says, "Two arts that died are the textiles of Kashmir woven in the kanni weave more popularly known as the jaamawar shawl and the ultra-fine cotton muslin of Bengal. However, they were lost but fortunately they didn’t die."

It was in protest against such British practices that khadi became the symbol of Independence in 1920 and all imported fabric began to be burned. Khadi kurta over khadi dhoti or pyjamas or and Gandhi cap for men and khadi sarees for women became the dress code of all Indians during those turbulent times. With such an emphasis on Indian fabric, the vast legacy of textile craft was revived within two decades of India’s Independence.

The revival of India’s traditional textile arts and techniques was pioneered by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. Looking for ways to embellish her khadi sarees, she broke the cast taboo and went about organising weavers and craftsmen. Ritu Kumar revived the Zardozi, Pranavi Kapur the muslin khadi and Calcutta designers Mona-Pali the kantha work and its motifs on sarees.

Experiments with the saree

Views on how the saree evolved differ. Ritu Kumar says a new dimension was given to the saree by Rabindranath Tagore’s sister in-law Yanodanandini in 1870 by wearing it over a petticoat with a blouse to match. Lina Luyton, in her book Sarees of India, says the saree can be traced back to the Brahmo Samaj days.

Whatever the exact date, the fact is that the saree started enjoying a cosmopolitan acceptance across different regions as British dresses were restrictive and unsuited to Indian conditions.

From the early part of the 20th century, women’s experiments and innovations only went so far as increasing or shortening the length of the pallav, or wearing it elegantly over their heads or, with the passage of time, just nonchalantly throwing it over the left shoulder.

Vandana Bhandari, assistant professor, at National Institute of Foreign Technology (NIFT) says, "Unlike the saree, the blouses began to be experimented with. When women in the West wore highnecks, fluffs and flounces, Indian women’s blouses had lace fluffs on the neck and the sleeves. Necks went higher or lower according to the western fashion. Long sleeves or short ones, frills and sleeve edges were dictated by the West."

After Independence, the erstwhile kings and princes lost their British patronage and they in turn withdrew their patronage to the karigars who began languishing in poverty. Several attire-related arts which thrived earlier were in danger of getting lost. This, coupled with the fact that most of India’s crafts and weaves were highly time-consuming, made the end product out of reach of the common man.

According to Ruby Kashyam, convener, Publica-tion Department of NIFT, some of the few such near-casualties were the Patan Patoles from Gujarat, the ikat from Orissa and Andhra, the Baluchars and Jamdanis from Bengal, the Paithani from Maharashtra and the brocades from Benaras.

Post-Independence generation

After Independence, women who had taken part in the freedom movement entered politics and the first signs of social change began appearing on the horizon. They became more confident in their roles outside the confines of the kitchen and gradually started looking for more practical and convenient garments.

This paved the way for the Punjabi salwaar-kurta. It was a convenient and comfortable wear, well within the confines of modesty and feminine grace and yet it made a unique fashion statement.

According to Vandana Bhandari, the arts of stitching and embroidering have been known to Indians since pre-historic times, but we always preferred unstitched garments as they were considered pure.

That’s why along with modern attire, women retained the unstitched garments like the Odhni or the chunari as an integral part of their couture wear, Vandana Bhandari adds.

"In the sixties and seventies, the printed nylon and chiffon sarees which were crease-free and easy to maintain became the in-thing."

These two decades also saw the invasion of the hippy movement. Partying and dancing was introduced to the Indian culture and replaced devotional gatherings and classical dances. With parties came a sudden change in attire.

Designer Pranavi Kapur says, "The sarong was adopted for party wear. But contrary to popular impression that it originated in the Orient, the sarong has traditionally been a part of the heavy garment worn by Punjabi, Keralite and Maharashtrian women during weddings and festive occasions.

Role of cinema in fashions

Interestingly from 1950s, cinema started playing a big role in the lives of the younger generation and whatever the popular stars wore became fashion.

Indian cinema, in turn, was influenced by Hollywood which brought in the minis and consequently, the length of the kameez was shortened.

For long, cinema had portrayed that only the vamp wore tight trousers and low-necked tops with exposed mid-riffs. The good women dressed only in sarees or salwaar-kurtas.

But soon all that changed as modern heroines began wearing western outfits. "Asha Parekh’s skin-tight kurtas and Mumtaz’s mini shirts, were copied on Indian roads as well," says Ruby Kashyam.

However, these tights were short-lived as they were impractical for Indian women who were traditionally used to loose and comfortable clothes. Along with the kurta becoming looser, the sleeves too underwent changes — from skin tight to bell-shaped to puffs and even sleeveless. The size of salwaar ponchas changed with every passing season. There were basically three salwaar styles — Patiala, Dogri and the Pathani.

In the ’80s, the dhoti salwaars and churidars came into vogue. Prolific use of net, lace, frilled collars, ruffled sleeves for tops came in as well. But it was still the decade of the saree for women and staid suits for men.

The dawn of the nineties changed all that. Communication explosion and the corresponding rise in the economic status of urban families turned the fashion scene on its head. Thanks to the Miss India, Miss Universe, Miss World and other international pageants, Indian fashions began to get appreciated worldwide.

With new and innovative designers graduating from prestigious schools like the National Institute of Fashion Technology, the scene has undergone a complete metamorphosis. In fact the wheel has come full circle in the century. Indian fashions have swung from the traditional to the western and now seem to be going back to their roots, the Indian craftsmen have been re-elevated to their lofty status by leading designers of the country.

In the coming millennium, Kumar says, we will be celebrating the legacy left to us, of the world’s richest repertoire of handicrafted textiles. In her book she writes that what is remarkable is that Indian traditional textiles do not "exist in the rarefied atmosphere of a museum workshop in an artist’s atelier.... they survive in the vast weaving, printing, embroidery and dyeing belts of the country..."

For once, at the turn of the century, Indian women and men have the freedom to experiment with whatever is beautiful and affordable.

— Newsmen Features