Not merely that a large number of European-American tourists in India are seen loitering in lanes of Rajasthani cities wearing a lehenga, and sometimes also a top styled like a traditional Rajasthani choli but the forms of lehengas and cholis have perceptibly influenced and refashioned the forms of European skirts and tops. Though a scarce phenomenon, many of the Europeans wedding an Indian bride emphatically insist that during marriage she wore an Indian styled lehenga, not a European robe, and sometimes even the style of traditional Indian marriage. Many known fashion-designers have from lands beyond India a good number of orders for lehengas and the artisans designing lehengas are their best paid masters. The primary costume of Rajput ladies of princely Rajasthan now for centuries this style of ensemble has grown around it the aura and grace of royalty and a typical robustness of the land.
Though all three articles in the set are alike significant, lehenga, larger and more expensive than other two, the lower wear worn supported on the waist down to the foot level, is obviously its most majestic and basic component. Across medieval era and under various cultures, mainly the Rajput and Muslim, lehenga had ghaghara-like other versions and its own various styles, now the term ‘lehenga’ itself defining them all. As its very form conditioned, the lehenga’s girth, as it was conveniently put on and borne on the waist, was its narrowest length, and the skirt’s flare or breadth, its widest, in some medieval examples, several yards. However, a normal lehenga has a girth that, passing through legs, is easily worn and is beautifully, not cumbersomely, gathered on the waist sending the entire length into gradually broadening pleats as do the petals of an inverted lotus, and a nine-ten feet wide flare that skirted round in complete grace, not out of proportion to the entire figure. These proportions : a narrower girth and wider skirt, are achieved not from a single piece of textile but by stitching together a number of ‘kalis’ – gussets or panels, as many in number as required, cut tapering or vertically narrowing, the style known as ‘kalidar-lehenga’.
One of the finest examples of ‘kalidar’ model, this lehenga, tailored from the finest class of Banarasi gold brocade, consists of ten gussets, each about ten inches wide at hem totaling into nine feet. For proper strength the bottom of the skirt has been hemmed using an unbroken doubled band of base textile, and the girth, with the doubled seam which also held draw-strings sewn from the brocade used for choli. Besides the bands used for hemming and for adding double seam for draw-strings, the lehenga consists of four parts, the largest being the upper consisting of elaborately brocaded silk in rust colour, and the rest, three horizontal panels of varying breadths brocaded with various beautiful floral and other designs and in different colours. Though not in its exactness, floral roundels brocaded all over close to each other give the main part the Kincab like look. At irregular intervals these floral roundels have been adorned with fine multi-colour beads.
A short blouse like designed and tailored choli, not so tight-fitted as it is usually designed, with tie-cords on the back has been tailored of the brocade the panels of which comprise the bottom part of the lehenga. Both, lehenga and choli have fine lining for manipulating the pricks of gold-thread used for brocading. The third component, a chiffon dupatta in fascinating green, the colour it shares partially with both, the blouse and the lehenga, has been worked with strips of the same brocade, though with a different colour scheme, as comprises the bottom part of the lehenga. The bells like shaped pendants with tassels of chains and beads are a common feature of all three components. They adorn the lehenga’s bottom part, choli’s sleeves and dupatta’s corners.
This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of ancient Indian literature. Dr Daljeet is the chief curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the National Museum of India, New Delhi. They have both collaborated on numerous books on Indian art and culture.
The set will fit UPTO the following sizes: 13.5" Shoulders38" BustSleeve Length 8.0"
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