“What’s that?” asked my husband, gesturing discreetly towards a girl walking on the other side of the road. “Are those flared trousers or have long skirts come back into fashion? Is it...,” he paused, wracking his brains for the right words, “...a full-length divided skirt?” I was quite impressed for I never thought my man of books and ideas would have any notion about divided skirts. Holding forth on divide and rule and its impact on society was more in his line.
“That’s a palazzo,” I replied, pleased I knew the answer to that one.
“Palazzo? Italian dish?” He looked puzzled. “Ha, Indian is more like it,” I commented, for the girl striding smartly ahead was very attractive in spite of her incongruous attire.
“Is it the in thing?” he asked, frowning in disapproval. “Looks like a confused tailor came up with this many-in-one.”
I looked at him in wonder. Why, his nonchalant observation might well hold the key to the baffling mystery of the origin of the palazzo pants. “This ‘many-in-one’, a combo of harem pants, trousers, long skirt, divided skirt, salwar, gharara, ghagra, sharara and bell bottoms, was quite likely a smart tailor’s sartorial response to a fickle-minded client’s order,” I observed.
“I think it looks like an underskirt,” he pronounced, rather uncharitably. “You left that one out.” No matter what it looks like, there’s always room in a palazzo for debate and argument.
Fashion statement
Palazzo pants became popular in the 1960s when Hollywood actresses favoured them. It is also believed that around the same period, when high-end restaurants denied admission to women in trousers, some enterprising feminists sought a way around this by wearing palazzos that were actually trousers but looked like skirts, thereby pleasing the prim, patriarchal restaurant owners and satisfying their own skirt-shunning instincts.
Very few can carry it off with panache. Not that it has stopped devotees of fashion from donning it. Or anything else, for that matter.
That’s the obvious thing about fashion today. Anything goes. A young chap might have dressed with care for a special dinner only to find the others turning up in faded, crumpled attire, often three sizes too small for them, and no one gets thrown out.
The shabby look has been embraced with great relief by everyone. Scruffy Bermuda shorts, sometimes with one trouser leg longer than the other, again a possible error by a tailor, have become a fashion statement, and the more visible pockets they sport, the higher the wearer’s stock rises in his peers’ eyes.
Women have fashion’s plenty to choose from. Skirts, suits, salwar and churidar kameezes, pants, jeans, palazzos... the range is unlimited. But sadly, amidst these riches, one unique, elegant and typically Indian dress has been moving into the endangered category. Yes, the sari.
The sari has plummeted in popularity and is shunned not just by youngsters but by older women who earlier had had no problem wearing it. Their boast that they needed just two minutes to wear a sari has been replaced by an exaggerated litany of complaints.
All on a sudden, it has become an uncomfortable attire, difficult and time-consuming to drape, and an impediment to easy mobility. The ubiquitous salwar kameez has pushed it out of wardrobes and I watched the rejection of a classy dress with sorrow.
To the rescue of saris
But hope has arrived from unexpected quarters. Fashionable blouses have come along to rescue the sari from oblivion. Now the blouse is the thing, the sari plays second fiddle.
When Sharmila Tagore wore a backless blouse in an old Hindi film, An Evening in Paris , everyone’s eyes grew as wide as her neckline. Women were outraged and men delighted that blouses should go in for minimalism. Some even said it was only half a blouse and should be called a “blou.”
But now, fancy backless blouses are the norm and no one bats an eyelid. And as long as the sari is back, backless is welcome.
“Anything looks ok in fashion, but appears ridiculous later. Take the birds’ nests actresses favoured in the ‘70s, and the bell bottoms,” my husband continued.
“Don’t worry, the bouffant hairstyle has returned and I bet bell bottoms are round the corner,” I laughed.
He shuddered. “Thank goodness for the sensible trousers and the comfortable jeans.” He looked down at the old pair of jeans he was wearing. “Oh no! Look! A tear!” he exclaimed, dismayed.
“Wonderful! Ripped jeans are the rage. Distressed jeans, they are called,” I hid a smile.
The expression of distress on his face was comical.
A fortnightly column by the city-based writer, academic and author of the Butterfingers series. She can be contacted at khyrubutter@yahoo.com
