Regional Dress in the 1920s

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From MV Dhurandhar’s set of watercolours from the 1920s. It pretty much covers the diverse costumes of communities at the time and you can see a number of regional variations at play.

This set largely has attire worn in Bombay and Gujarat (ParsiKhoja (a little bit on them here), a dyer girl in Ahmedabad (hence the simplicity of her dress), and aPathare Prabhu lady (excuse the rambling wiki entry).  The other two are sketches that Dhurandhar made of “Mahomedan” girls in the then Bombay in the early 1920s.

The everyday kurta/tunic seems to be rather short in this decade (though the Khoja outfit is fairly voluminous and you can find longer lengths in the watercolours of northern dress). 1 and 6 are saris worn Parsi style (the long sudren of 1 is replaced by a tinyblouse in the watercolour entitled Mahomedan Girl on Foras Road), Pic 4 is the nine yard Maharashtrian sari. Pic 1 and 4 have long and sleeved blouses (perhaps the sleeveless blouse only became popular by the 30s?). And the closed kind of Western footwear appears so much in the early 20th century.

About Anu M

A potted history of Indian clothing and fashion.
This entry was posted in 1920s, Art, Colonial, Early 20th Century, Vintage, Vintage Blouse, Vintage Dress, Women and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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