MOVIE REVIEW:

FROM FASHION AND DESIGN PERSPECTIVE

Genre:
Classics, Drama,
Biography

Directed By:
Richard
Attenborough

Costume design: 
Bhanu
Athaiya, John Mollo

Runtime:
191 min

BY JYOTI RAWAL
 Timeline:
From formation of Indian National Congress to Independent India:
Clothing of the people in colonial rule:
 The movie takes up Gandhi’s story in 1893, when he is a young lawyer in South Africa.
 At that time, Gandhiji used to wear a coat-pant and a hat.

FIG . GANDHI JI IN SOUTH AFRICA

 In 1915, gandhiji landed in Bombay, India.

 He was wearing an Indian attire, a dhoti, kurta, shawl, and a tuft with his wife wearing a
saree.
 FIG . GANDHI JI WITH HIS WIFE LANDED IN BOMBAY , INDIA

 In the movie, the upper class Indian men were shown wearing dhoti, sherwani, coats, turbans
 The women on the other hand wore sarees and blouses or lehenga cholis i.e. skirt and blouse
pairs.
 Also metal jewellery such as bracelets or earrings was found to be worn by both men and
women.
 FIG. UPPER CLASS MEN AND WOMEN ATTIRE
 The wealthy Parsis of western India were among the first to adapt Western-style
clothing. Baggy trousers and the phenta (or hat) were added to long collarless coats,
with boots and a walking stick to complete the look of the gentleman.
 The poor strata in India usually had a simple way of dressing. The men used to wear
dhoti, kurta while the women wrap saree with the veil.

FIG. LOWER CLASS PEOPLE ATTIRE

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE INDIAN AND THE BRITISH

IDEOLOGY DURING BRITISH RAJ
  Sarees in India were initially worn without a blouse or a petticoat - there was
only a breast band called a ‘Pratidhi’, which was only worn by upper-class
women.
 The culture of wearing blouses came from the British, where the torso of the
gown was copied and blouses made.
 When European traders first began frequenting India, they were distinguished
from the Indian ‘turban wearers’ as the ‘hat wearers.’
 The turban in India was not just for protection from the heat but was a sign of
respectability, and could not be removed at will.
 In the Western tradition, the hat had to be removed before social superiors as
a sign of respect.
 Indian men took off their shoes as a mark of respect, which was not a case
with the British.

The impact that British Raj had on Indian clothing and how it was
altered forever can be summarized as follows:
1. It was a fashion statement among the elites, to dress up in a more contemporary British Fashion.

2. It blurred caste differences, anybody dressed up in western clothing was a forward looking,
educated Indian and not from an x, y, z caste or religion.

3. Women felt more comfortable and modern.

4. It was thrust upon servants or bearers, to don the upper garment at least like shirts and coats and
to keep Indian turbans.

5. It was the uniform for the army.

FIG. SHOWING THE DRESS CODE OF ARMY DURING BRITISH RAJ
IMPACT OF BRITISH ON TEXTILE INDUSTRIES OF INDIA:
 British first came to trade in Indian textiles that were in great demand all over the world.
 Industrial Revolution in Britain, which mechanised spinning and weaving and greatly
increased the demand for raw materials such as cotton and indigo, changed India’s status in
the world economy.
 Political control of India helped the British in two ways: Indian peasants could be forced to
grow crops such as indigo, and cheap British manufacture easily replaced coarser Indian
one.
 Large numbers of Indian weavers and spinners were left without work, and important
textile weaving centres such as Murshidabad, Machilipatnam and Surat declined as demand
fell.

FIG . MARCH AGAINST BRITISHERS

 Yet by the middle of the twentieth century, large numbers of people began boycotting
British or mill-made cloth and adopting khadi, even though it was coarser, more expensive
and difficult to obtain.

KHADI- THE IDENTITY OF HOME RULE

 Swadeshi gave Mahatma Gandhi important ideas about using cloth as a symbolic weapon
against British rule.
 Gandhi ji made spinning on the charkha and the daily use of khadi, or coarse cloth made
from homespun yarn, very powerful symbols.
  These were not only symbols of self-reliance but also of resistance to the use of British mill-
made cloth. Mahatma Gandhi’s experiments with clothing sum up the changing attitude to
dress in the Indian subcontinent.

FIG . GANDHI JI IN DHOTI SPINNING KHADI YARN

GANDHI CAP
 Mahatma Gandhi transformed the Kashmiri cap that he sometimes used into a cheap white
cotton khadi cap.
 For two years from 1919, he himself wore the cap, and then gave it up, but by this time it
had become part of the nationalist uniform and even a symbol of defiance.
 FIG. PEOPLE WEARING GANDHI CAP

COLONIAL MEN CLOTHING IN INDIA:

 Within the first decades of the 18th century a man's suit was recognized as coat, waistcoat,
and breeches. At times it was thought fashionable, especially for formal dress, to wear all
matching pieces referred to as a "suit in ditto."
 But often a man would choose a different waistcoat, or waistcoats, to accompany matching
coat and breeches. 
 FIG. THREE PIECE SUIT
  Fashionable stockings of silk or cotton were generally white, and at times were decorated
with knit or embroidered patterns at the ankle, referred to as "clocks" or "clocking."
 More utilitarian stockings of linen, and particularly worsted wool, were seen in colors, with
blue and gray predominating. 
 Waistcoats were made in all qualities of silk, cotton, wool, and linens.

DESIGN ELEMENTS:
COLOURS PROMINENT IN THE BRITISH RULE:
 Politicians in pre independent India usually carry white attire be it dhoti, kurta and caps.
 White signifies peace as well as their non co-operation to the british rule.
 FIG. INDIAN MEN, MOSTLY WEARING WHITE ATTIRE

 People usually wear off white colours and black, grey were aslo very common among
masses
 Married Indian women wear red colour and its varieties.Yellow was also considered
auspisious.
 Later many of them opted for khadi and boycotted the foreign wearing.

LINES:
 The lower and the middle class women usually wear saare with plain border.
 FIG. INDIAN WOMEN WEARING PLAIN SAREE WITH BORDERS

 While the upper middle class and the upper class women wear sarees with horizontal
and vertical lines or both.
 The men usually wear plain dhoti, kurta and sherwani.
 The Britishers wore more of checked or plain coats.

EMPHASIS:
  Mahatma Gandhi fondness of wearing Khadi. And, who can forget those round
spectacles which he used to carry often.
FIG GANDHI JI WITH SPECTACLES
THANK YOU