Business | Features
From Gandhi to Gucci
Despite the simplicity of the past, fashion is now flourishing.
- By Amy Kazmin, Financial Times
- Published: 23:00 June 2, 2009
In India, clothes have long been imbued with serious political connotations.
Among the most powerful symbols of Indian resistance to British colonial rule was the move in the 1920s by Indian nationalists to stop wearing British and other foreign-made garments in favour of simple garments made from homespun cotton cloth, known as khadi.
Mahatma Gandhi, the visionary leader of India's independence struggle, spent hours spinning his own cotton cloth, and urging his followers to do the same as part of their struggle for freedom from foreign domination. He also expressed distaste for bright, bold colours, urging women to wear pure white so they could participate in public life without appearing immodest or provocative.
While none but Gandhi's most fervent followers rebuffed colour and ornamentation as completely as he advocated, the Mahatma's austere dress sense remained a major influence on what affluent Indians wore for decades after India's 1947 independence. This fashion of simplicity was reinforced by independent India's initially socialist-oriented economic policies which frowned on obvious displays of wealth.
India's now flourishing fashion industry was born in this seemingly unpromising terrain in the late 1980s, shortly before an economic meltdown forced New Delhi to open its state-controlled economy to market forces.
Pioneering fashion designers such as Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Khosla, Asha Sarabhai, Ritu Kumar and JJ Valaya, initially focused almost exclusively on traditional Indian garments that were worn at weddings, where open displays of opulence were still permissible.
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Their luxurious creations drew on the subcontinent's abundant supply of rich, hand-woven textiles, and used traditional forms of labour-intensive embellishment with beads, small mirrors, crystals and embroidery of silver or gold threads.
"Layering on lavish embellishments enabled them to justify the high prices they were seeking in a country of consumers not used to spending lavish amounts," says Mukti Khaire, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, who has studied the evolution of India's fashion industry.
The early focus on embellishment - rather than the structural design innovation that often characterises western fashion - was also marketed as a way of reviving and supporting endangered traditional handicraft skills.
"High fashion was pitched not as a new industry but as a positive force for reviving old ones, aiding the poor and preserving national heritage," Khaire says.
Today, affluent Indians are less hesitant to splash out on expensive clothes. This is allowing Indian designers to create less elaborate, Western-style fashions, although they often still retain Indian sensibilities in the colour, cut or intricate designs of the fabric. "People are seeing that you can buy simpler clothes at high prices," says Khaire.
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