From craft to couture: Contemporary Indian fashion in historical perspective

ABSTRACT

The historical development of fashion has long been seen as a hallmark of European modernity. By contrast, the study of clothing in non-European societies has emphasized the immutability of dress in those societies. As a result, South Asian fashion is rarely discussed in the same terms that have underpinned the study of Western fashion, that is in the context of social, economic, and political change over time. This article situates the emergence of the luxury fashion industry in India against the social and cultural history of colonial rule, the aesthetic and industrial legacies of the independence movement, and the revival of various Indian craft traditions. It argues that India is no exception to the dynamics of fashion that have marked its development in the fashion capitals of Europe. India’s sartorial codes are not mere custom or tradition but fashion in the true sense: culturally constructed, politically inflected, and historically contingent.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• fashion
• craft
• history
• colonialism
• Gandhi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Some scholars have suggested that Gandhi’s emphasis on spinning, as opposed to weaving, afforded him only a superficial understanding of the craft textile tradition in India (see for instance, Rao 377–94).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tara Mayer

Tara Mayer is a historian of South Asia whose scholarship traces material and aesthetic exchanges between India, Britain, and France in ways that blur the boundaries of her discipline. Through visual and textual sources that connect the metropole to the colony, her work explores the tension between Enlightenment ideas and the praxis of empire in the construction and contestation of racial and gendered identities. It reveals the deeply reciprocal processes of appropriation, assimilation, and influence that took place at the intersection of European and Asian material culture. She has served as a research consultant for international exhibitions on Indian art, Orientalism, and European portraiture and currently works in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia.