Q1.
What are your observations about continuity and change in clothing styles today? What might be the reasons for the changes we see?
Answer
Answer it in the chapter’s own two columns — what has continued, what has changed — and then give the reasons, which is where the marks are.
| Continuity | Change |
|---|---|
| The sari, “with its rich regional variations”, is still worn — and still tells you the wearer’s region by its drape and weave | It is now worn far more for occasions than for daily work in cities, while the salwar-kameez and Western clothes are everyday wear |
| The pyjama and the kurta, adopted in court in this very period, are still in daily use | Cut, fabric and fastening have changed — zips, elastic, machine stitching, synthetic blends |
| The dupatta, which the chapter traces to fine muslin sari-inspired dupattas | Now often a light accessory rather than a covering |
| Wedding and festival clothing stays the most conservative of all — zarī, brocade, the būtā motif | The same motifs are now machine-woven and mass-produced |
| Handloom regions still carry their identity — Banarasi, Kanjeevaram, Pochampalli, Chanderi | Uniforms, jeans and T-shirts have become the shared clothing of school, office and travel across the whole country |
Reasons for the changes
- Work and mobility. Clothes follow what people do. Commuting, riding two-wheelers, factory and office work all favour stitched, close-fitting, easily washed clothes.
- Manufacturing and price. Power looms and ready-made garments made stitched clothing cheaper than the tailoring or the handloom it replaced.
- Exposure. Cinema, television, advertising and the internet spread a style nationally within months. In the period the chapter describes, exposure came through courts and trade instead — which is why the jama and the angrakha spread “especially among the ruling class”.
- New materials. Synthetic fibres, and blends that need no ironing, changed what could be made.
- Identity and occasion. This is why the change is never total. People keep traditional dress for weddings, festivals and rituals precisely because clothing signals who you are, not only what you are doing.
The chapter’s own point, tested on today: the angrakha “is believed to have evolved from Persian court fashion and was adapted to Indian aesthetics and fabrics.” The mechanism has not changed at all — a garment arrives from outside, the elite adopt it first, local makers rework it in local cloth for local weather, and two generations later nobody thinks of it as foreign. That is exactly what has happened to the shirt, the trouser and the T-shirt in India.