The second wave in Indian aesthetics came about in the new millennium, with the stitched garment. Previously, it was almost all about the unstitched sari. But now, designers such as Tarun Tahiliani, Ritu Kumar and J.J. Valaya started experimenting with the stitched garment. They brought about a fashion movement, using a bit of craft and creating something modern. By the beginning of the new millennium, most sectors of Indian industry had been successfully liberalized. India was now open to the world. Indian tastes were being influenced by products from abroad. Our desires and aesthetics were changing to something where we could stand out, yet be one with the world. In tandem with these changes—neither causing them, nor because of them—Indian designers established new references, tailoring lehngas, cholis, kurtas and salwars. The proportions they catered to were different, and so were the silhouettes they created. They used plenty of motifs, often in threadwork. The more the kalamkari, the more ‘beautiful’ the garment was considered. The most enduring effect of this second wave of Indian aesthetics has been the establishment of the notion that simple is dull. These were the designers, later joined by the talented couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee, who draped Indian Bollywood actors dancing on the silver screen in shimmering, gold-embroidered lehngas in front of the Indian masses, who liked what they saw. This aesthetic—of shimmer and gold all over a garment—has transposed itself from the couture stores of Delhi to the lanes of Johri Bazaar in Jaipur.
We are now in an era that is searching for India. There is a feeling that we have gone too far away, and too soon. We have lost much of our ancient knowledge in the sciences and mathematics, and we do not know any more how to read Sanskrit, the language in which most of the treasures of our ancient wisdom are written. Who are we as Indians? Are we lost in the glitter and gold of global influences? Have we lost our core?
Searching for answers, we are at the ebb of a new revivalist wave—a third wave—in Indian aesthetics. Led by designers such as Sanjay Garg, the old crafts of India are being brought back into the mainstream. The sari is once again in the limelight, with a renewed conviction that it belongs to the loom. Often, the motifs are woven in, not embroidered, thus showcasing the power of the loom. The aesthetics are minimalistic. The silhouette of the blouse and the drape of the sari have changed dramatically. The blouse and the sari are worn loose, comfortable and airy, rejecting the erstwhile tight, restrictive sari ensemble.
Wearing the sari draped casually, teamed with a loose blouse and loafers or boots, is a contemporary statement of sorts by Indian women standing up to the men in their desire to go out and work. It is not yet a reflection of changing times, but of these women’s desire to change their status. In this sense, the socio-economic circumstances that caused this change in dress are not the same as those that caused a fashion shift in the post–Second World War era of hardship, when British women gave up their corsets and gowns for garments that gave them more mobility to go out and work with the men.
We would expect economic growth to go hand in hand with the emancipation of women. We would imagine that the expansion of the economy would provide more opportunities and conducive environments for women to work if they wish to. But in India, it has been the other way round. Between 2004 and 2011, when the Indian economy grew at a healthy average of about 7 per cent, there was a devastating decline in female participation in the country’s labour force, from over 35 per cent to 25 per cent. The rising educational enrolment of women contributed to this fall in workforce numbers, but so did factors such as lack of employment opportunities for women and increased household income.11 This is a disturbing trend—and one that is long-term, not transitory—because it means that the freedom of women to earn their livelihood in India is being curtailed.
Therefore the pushback from many women comes not just in the form of words, but in their dress too. They dress for comfort, often to send out a message of ‘ready-to-work’ easy confidence and that they too are at par with the men.
It is impossible for an Indian to follow merely one culture—the one in the immediate surroundings at a specific moment, or, say, the one they were born into—among many, and be immune to the rest.
We are defined by what we surround ourselves with over extended periods. For each of us, therefore, being surrounded by an incredibly fast-changing society, which includes thousands of diverse local cultures, influences the manner in which we live and even our dress and tastes. Our personal history, socio-economic as well as political changes in the environment, the social constraints we are confronted with, regional affiliations, cultural moorings, as well as our own interpretation of the complex changes in our unparalleled, heterogeneous society all shape our individual tastes and aesthetics. This shapes who we are, our likes and dislikes, our aspirations and hopes. We are thus, each of us, a product of the complexity that such diversity and change in India bring.References
Bhuyan, Avantika. 2016. The Benarasi brocade and a monument of weaves. Business Standard, 26 February.
Burton, Richard Francis, trans. 1883. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (Benares: Society of the Friends of India).
Chakrabarti, Arindam, ed. 2016. The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art (New Delhi: Bloomsbury Publishing).
Chatterji, Miniya. 2016. Unpeeling the history of the blouse. Huffington Post India, 21 August.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 1939. Ornament, The Art Bulletin 21.4, pp. 375–382.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 1943. Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art (North Chelmsford: Courier Corporation).
Dewey, John. 1934. Art as Experience (New York: Minton, Balch & Company).
Goodman, Nelson. 1978. Ways of Worldmaking (Hackett Publishing Company).
Lilaowala, Ashdeen Z., and Shernaz Cama. 2013. Threads of Continuity:
