December 25, 2004

The first half of this year girls in Lahore were wearing short kameezes and really slim shalwars. Just a few months ago, however, everyone started wearing the same short kameezes with patiala shalwars that ballooned out with many pleats. Who knew that the patiala shalwar, that first made an appearance in Mughal India, would become popular in Pakistan in 2004?

In the 16th, 17th or 18th centuries, only upper-class people dressed fashionably and other people had to wear very simple clothes that hardly changed over several generations. The rich and the aristocracy had the money and time to spend on fashion, but the poor did not. Those who could afford it didn’t have to work and get dirty in the fields and could just sit around all day in their drawing rooms or the royal court. It was in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that fashion became a larger preoccupation and more and more people started making it a part of their daily life.

With the age of industrialization and the economic empowerment of people high fashion began to get more and more affordable. Today high fashion, such as Chanel and Calvin Klein can be referred to as haute couture because of the exclusive and expensive clothing produced by leading designers. But not everyone has the pocket for these prices. And in more recent decades we have seen the rise of what is called high street fashion, or fashion that is beautiful but still affordable. Think of GAP amongst others. And the focus again, on the average person’s fashion is comfort and affordability.

We as Pakistanis take just as much pride in fashion as people in Paris do. In our culture fashion means that a girl or young woman sitting in any part of the city can design her own suit, buy the material she likes and get her tailor to make it just as she likes. Many women who wanted to make a living started tailoring and designing at home, which means that fashion can also be seen as a cottage industry in Pakistan.

Fashion is one of the easiest ways to get an idea of what a society believes in. After September 11, 2001, many fashion designers came out with military and utilitarian designs that reflected the theme of the “war on terror”. The cargo pant was designed much earlier, but it too has its roots in the army look. But it doesn’t have to be a mass movement for a certain fashion to take hold and sweep the world.

Individuals have also had an impact. Royalty and heads of state have set fashion trends. Think of Princess Diana who started a trend by wearing one red glove and one black glove with her ball gown to an awards ceremony.

Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, is also known as a trendsetter, someone who revived Afghanistan’s traditional silhouette.

King Henry the Eighth’s wife Anne Boleyn had an extra finger for which she designed the bell sleeve so that she could hide the deformity. Since then the bell sleeve has become popular and is seen as a fashion statement even today.

Styles have also changed as a result of contact with other societies and competition for status within a society. Quite recently the bindi or tikka became popular in the West that developed a craze for all things Indian. Yet it was not until the 14th and 15th centuries that styles begin to follow a regular pattern of change in the East. The beginning of fashion dates from that time.

Since the beginning, fashion in the East possessed a significant delicacy and its range was remarkably wide, due to the great size of the subcontinents, geographical differences, the bewildering diversity of ethnic groups that were at times influenced by the arrival or people from foreign lands.

Before the invasion of India by the Mohammedans, the art of sewing was not practiced in this part of the subcontinent. The ‘timeless’ Indian dress for men, thus, consisted of garments that used no stitching. Garments that in other words “left the loom and were ready for wear”. The dhoti, the scarf and the turban, which have never really disappeared from any part of Pakistan and India, belong to this category.

Likewise, for women, the dhoti or the sari as lower garments, combined with a stanapatta or breast-band formed a basic ensemble, which was once again made up of garments that do not need to be stitched. The stanapatta was simply fastened in a knot at the back and the dhoti and the sari were worn to cover both legs. Fashion became interesting during the rule of the Sultanates in northern India when the newly-arrived Muslims brought new fabrics, dyes and costumes.

A lot has changed and evolved in the history of fashion since the 1900s. As the century dawned, fashion was an exclusive enterprise, the pursuit of wealth. The average person in society settled for garments that were usually stitched at home. With time, however, networks of neighbourhood tailors began to evolve into a retail history and the boom was followed by boutique selling.

The 1930s were influenced by socialism, communism and fascism and women’s fashion became more and more feminine in keeping with these conservative ideas. However, this period also saw the emergence of the culture of clubs and hence dresses became more body-hugging and colours went more deep and dark.

The establishment of Indian and Pakistani cinema has proved to be the strongest influence on the fashion in the decade. Due to western influence, the use of angarkhas, choghas and jamas had diminished considerably by this time, although the ceremonial pagri, safa and topi were widespread as ever. They had been replaced by the sherwani, which is still a standard item of formal dress for Indian and Pakistani men today.

Even though women were accepting change, they continued to wear the peshwaz, kurta, ghaghra and odhni at religious and ceremonial festivities, which were even sometimes made of imported fabrics.

The 1950s saw the dawn of art colleges and schools and due to the freedom struggle and the adoption of khadi by Gandhi, the dying and handloom industries got more business.

The 1960s was one of the most shock-filled decades of the century, as it saw sweeping fashion and lifestyle changes. Tight kurtas and churidars competed with mini-skirts abroad and at the same time, designers began to understood the need for cheaper, ready-to-wear lines.

The 1970s saw the export of traditional material with the result that export surplus was sold within the country itself and hence, international fashion came to the sub-continent. Synthetics became popular and the clothes even flashier.

In the 1980s big money ruled. In Pakistan too, silhouettes became more masculine and the shalwar kameez was made with shoulder pads.

The influence of cable TV became more prominent and the teenage market boomed with youngsters who were more fashion conscious.

Fashion also has its critics, who have at times accused fashion of being irrational (transparent blouses), silly (ripped jeans), cruel (think fur) and immoral (mini skirts). Fashion is also so arbitrary. Why should pink be in fashion one season and gray the next?

Why do people follow fashion like sheep when they have enough clothes already? The final decision about what to buy, or whether to buy anything at all, belongs to the consumer. But this we can all agree on: Fashion is a big part of our lives and will stay so for a long time.

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