Kanishka, the headless warrior, is the name given to a fragment of a stone relief from the 2nd century AD depicting the Kushan king. He was wearing a knee-length tunic and trousers gathered at the ankle, new to a region where clothing was of unstitched cloth. Later years, especially after the arrival of Muslim dynasties, saw the evolution of a dazzling array of finely stitched clothing — the angharka, sherwani, peshwaz, farshi pajama that reached its pinnacle in the Mughal courts.

Men wore layers of embroidered silk garments with intricate necklaces, bejewelled armbands, earrings and rings, intricately fashioned turbans and embroidered shoes. They were fanned with peacock feathers.

Rural communities and tribes had their own distinct form of carefully classified styles of clothing and turbans. Not only did you recognise a man’s tribe by his turban, beard and moustache, but also the place he occupied in his tribe. Clothing has been seen both as identity or signifying inclusion in a group of people, as well as exclusion of those outside the group.

Cultural identity was first displaced by colonisation, followed by consumerism, urbanisation and again by the current politics of religion in Pakistan.

Once in the departure lounge of Dubai airport waiting for a flight to Karachi, I was acutely aware that this dishevelled motley crowd of tired travellers that I saw there bore no resemblance to the heritage of elegant clothing and style the region was known for. The only time they are likely to be stylishly dressed was at a wedding or Eid. What happened to the elegance of the everyday — to body language that carried the flow of the river, the swell of the desert dune and the stature of mountains?

How did we start wearing rolled-up trousers, tucked-up shalwars, and generic black sadri waistcoats?

Women have still kept traditional clothing alive in its classical or contemporary evolutions, not only for special occasions but in daily life. But, by and large, with the exception of cultural crusaders such as Yusuf Bashir Qureshi, men gave up their pagris, their angarkhas and most certainly the jewels, necklaces and earrings. In South Asia, the obvious reason was the downfall of the Mughal and other regional kingdoms, and the unravelling of the social and cultural ecology by the British colonisers. It is a natural response for the courtiers and upper classes — male and female — to adopt the dress, language and manners of the rulers. Muslim rule introduced the Persian language and fashions of the court quickly filtered through to the many kingdoms that made up India.

The English added to that a policy designed by Macauley as a solution to the administrative problem of a handful of British officers managing a huge nation. The creation of an administration that must necessarily adopt the values and systems of the rulers naturally led to the adoption of not just language but also dress code and manners. In fact, the British would have preferred not to try to adopt the dress code.

This was not unique to postcolonial societies but a global trend. Beginning with the French Revolution when it was prudent to dress down, there was a general sobering of men’s wear. The Puritans who made the journey across the Atlantic to escape the new liberalism of Europe adopted a distinct style of clothing. Beau Brummel epitomised the transition from lavish to subtle stylishness.

However, by the Victorian era, religious modesty and austerity was imposed on both men and women becasue of rising middle-class values, the pragmatic needs of professional lives and to impose colonial authority. The period between the World Wars saw the establishment of The Great Male Renunciation in 1930. Established by the psychoanalyst John Flügel, of the Dress Reform Party encouraged men to give up adornment. The war was a sobering experience and masculinity and readiness for action became the focus. The world of men’s fashion had changed. Men must be men, and women must be women.

Post-independence, this is the world the newly-formed Pakistan found itself in. While there was a return to local languages and to some extent local styles of clothing, there was no return to bejewelled clothing and elaborate turbans. As we looked to following the model of the modern industrialised state, there was the continued adoption of first British and then American clothing styles as they evolved from three piece suits to shorts and T-shirts.

Clothing not only affects confidence and mood, but it also conveys a message. That message is not only about cultural identity but in recent years in Pakistan it has taken on a polarising political message. Rather than between traditional and Western clothes it has become between Western and ‘Islamic’ clothing. However, there is a return not to burqa but hijab, not pagri but keffiyeh.

Cultural identity was first displaced by colonisation, followed by consumerism, urbanisation and again by the current politics of religion. Where that challenge was embodied in the past in the Khadi movement, Gandhi’s langotee or the Ali brothers’ cloak and crescent cap, today it’s a rootless drift between anode and cathode. One cannot be unmindful because as Karen J. Pine writes, “When we put on a piece of clothing we cannot help but adopt some of the characteristics associated with it, even if we are unaware of it.”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 7th, 2017