I n its many variations, the male kurti is a hybrid phenomenon. It is firmly suspended in the middle of a spectrum that at the one end delves into traditional kurtas and formal sherwanis and at the other drifts towards modern anglicised lines. Adroitly, the kurti merges the best of both worlds: trendy and comfortable with traditional accents. It is because of these virtues that it is a sartorial statement that has lasted through time.

“The male short kurta’s origin can possibly be attributed to the horse-riding culture that came to the subcontinent when it was invaded by the Aryans from Central Asia,” surmises Nasreen Askari, director of the Mohatta Palace. “Before this, people of the subcontinent wore fabric that was not cut. From the 16th till the 19th century, the kurta’s length varied but it continued to be worn and one sees it mentioned in the self-aggrandising court-room chronicles of Mughal emperors. The men of the time wore the khilat or long robe and underneath it they wore fine muslin kurtas. The lengths differed from short to long and the kurta often had pockets to hold snuff, ornaments or royal seals,” she elaborates.

Spiralling forward through time, the long kurta proceeded to become a wardrobe staple while its shorter counterpart was equated with casual modernity. In the swinging ’60s, kurtis flitted upon the hippie trail, coursing through Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, India and Nepal. Accessorised with strands of beads and oversized sunshades, they were generally androgynous and epitomised the flower power era. When the Beatles visited India in the late ’60s, they were photographed wearing floral tapered kurti-style shirts. And in 1971’s Bollywood Hare Rama Hare Krishna, the kurti was prominent, worn by actress Zeenat Aman and her troupe of hippies.

It was also in the ’70s that couturier Sughra Kazmi was designing export-wear under the name ‘Oriental Fashions’ and as business grew, her celebrity brother Anwar Maqsood would sometimes model her kurti designs for her.

A glitzy genealogy

There are so many more times when the kurti has been ensemble du jour in show business; worn by actors when they played artists, poets and metro-sexual college boys. One only has to jog the memory to remember some of these instances: Rajesh Khanna’s superstar years in the ’60s and ’70 s when he popularised the round-necked A-line long kurta as well as kurti, infamously coined as the ‘Guru kurta’. Later, Shahrukh Khan wore a kurti-style shirt as he bemoaned ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ and Salman Khan paired plain kurtis with chinos in last year’s blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

Will it make a comeback or has it receded for good?

Closer to home, the musical revolution of the ’80s and ’90s often featured the kurti. Ali Azmat and Salman Ahmed head-banging with their ‘Junoon’ wore kurtis, so did a younger musically-minded Junaid Jamshed, a soulful Najam Sheraz and a crooning Ali Haider. The trend went viral and the kurti was duly stocked at men’s stores across the country.

“Kurtis were extremely popular,” remembers designer Deepak Perwani. “Back in the day, I was often designing wardrobes for music videos and dressing musicians and we made so many kurtis. I wouldn’t say that they represented mainstream fashion — that niche belongs to the basic kurta and sherwani — but they were easy to wear, relatively cheaper to manufacture and the youth, particularly, enjoyed wearing them.”

And yet, despite this glittering genealogy, the kurti has receded into the shadows with time, no longer very visible in local men’s fashion.

Demand and supply

“We were making kurtis until about six years ago but this was when we were creating both Eastern and Western menswear,” explains Deepak. “However, there was always a greater demand for the former and we decided to discontinue making shirts, pants and kurtis altogether. The demand for Eastern-wear was simply much, much more and we changed our brand’s USP to cater to it.”

A similar reasoning is provided by high-street heavyweight Khaadi when the kurti ceased to be part of their regular stock for menswear. According to CEO Shamoon Sultan, “When we launched Khaadi in 1999, we used to stock kurtis and we continued to do so until 2005. At the time, we were facing production capacity issues and so we let go of the kurti, giving precedence to the much more popular kurta.”

There is, of course, no doubt that the long kurta has always been a much more lucrative product for designers. The kurti may have its trendy clientele but the demand for kurta is much more widespread, the formal versions worn at weddings and dinners and informal basic designs worn as daywear. Yet another contender is the embellished sherwani, traditional grooms-wear that will always generate sales and bring in considerable profits.

Thereby, the kurti began to fizzle out particularly from our catwalks. While in India, one continued to spot it at seasonal fashion weeks, in Pakistan, the embellished sherwani tended to walk the runway in all its embellished multi-coloured expensive glory.

Modern times

But according to veteran menswear designer Amir Adnan, the kurti never quite completely went away — it merely changed with the times. “Designers redefine past trends, tweaking them and making them current. I designed the A-line kurti back in the ’90s but now the kurti in our stores is a tapered long shirt, usually with a round hem. It’s actually a flattering silhouette, making men look slender and taller while the older boxy shape made one look stocky. Also, the kurti we stock isn’t usually embroidered extensively. We’ll add a logo on a pocket, emphasise button detailings, mix in textures or play with layers to make it trendy.”

Other ateliers have also been reinterpreting the kurti. At Ahmed Bham, they are frequently constructed with fluent linens, with square hems and small side chaaks (side slits). Omar Farooq of Republic considers them to be oversized shirts. “To be worn with jeans or with bomber jackets,” he suggests.

At Khaadi, also, the kurti is set to make a comeback this winter.

Ehtesham Ansari, stylist for Coke Studio over the past two years, says, “This year, I had Ali Noor and Ali Hamza tuck in their kurtas and last year, Umair Jaswal did the same for ‘Sammi Meri Waar’. I am also noticing how many men like to layer the short kurta with a T-shirt. The kurti may not have been very visible on the high-street in recent times but it always has been a wardrobe essential that can be styled in many different ways.”

Thereby, the kurti remains in vogue; tweaked, layered and simmered down at times. It may not always be the hottest choice for scions of style but it remains an option, for the sheer comfort it offers and its slightly out-of-the-box appeal.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine September 25th, 2016