Saris and contemporary Indian womanhood: how middle-class women navigate the tradition/modernity split

Abstract

Despite the major changes in urban middle-class Indian women’s clothing in the past 30 years, there are few accounts of women’s perspectives on their changing dress. This paper analyzes 31 semi-structured interviews with urban middle-class women in Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune to examine the changing meanings associated with saris in contemporary India. While the sari has entered the realm of global fashion and can thus be characterized as modern and sexy, the garment remains strongly associated with respect and maturity for women, particularly within their families, but also in public spaces and in the workplace. Women link their practices of sari wearing to modern aspirations by emphasizing saris as ‘modern’ fashionable attire, while simultaneously reinforcing the sari as a symbol of traditional, respectable married womanhood, thus exploiting the traditional meanings that the sari confers on them to their advantage. The emphasis on saris as simultaneously ‘modern’ and representative of Indian tradition indicates the cultural pressure placed on middle-class women to conform to dictates of traditional womanhood while also aligning themselves with modernity.

Keywords:

• gender
• middle-class women
• saris
• globalization
• fashion

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to the women who took the time out of their busy lives to speak with me about something as ordinary as clothing. In many cases, they warmly welcomed me into their homes. I can never forget their kind hospitality and willingness to share their experiences, without which this research could not have been possible. I would also like to thank Jyoti Puri, whose encouragement and insightful comments at the beginning of this project inspired me to pursue it and Ted Gerber for his comments on an early draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.