"As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones." Mahabharata, Chapter 2, verse 22
Do you dress yourself up to feel pretty, warm, covered, individual, professional, understood? I could name a million more words, too. The fast fashion era has ushered in a complete devaluing of human labor and textile production, and yet, even as clothing has become nearly disposable, we still hold many of the same impulses as our ancestors.
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Indian textiles are an enormous topic. If you go into your closet right now, you are likely the owner of an Indian textile; however, it was probably very cheap. You can thank the British for the devaluing of the Indian textile industry, but in ancient times Indian textiles were some of the most valued textiles. Over the years, I’ve taught many courses about Indian textiles, sometimes starting with a broad scope from the earliest cultivations of cotton to contemporary High fashion; other times, I have focused on specific techniques like block printing versus woven textiles. Each approach offers learners a different lens into the broad topic. But today is an introduction; I’d like to bring up three ways Indian textiles impact your everyday life.
While this is true of textiles globally, India has a particularly rich culture of textile production. Why has South Asia become so well known for textile production? In South Asia, there is a confluence of natural resources and human ingenuity. South Asia is very geographically diverse and, as such, has numerous climates that foster the growth of a wide range of plant fibers that can be used to create textiles as well as dyes. It is also historically a very populated region. Therefore, there was a great need for textiles to clothe the people, but also a number of people who could innovate to create new textiles as well as work in textile Industries. While now fabric is considered cheap, historically it was a very labor-intensive material.
The history of Indian textiles offers both a foundation in textiles in general and also touches on all of the major periods in Indian history. Given that the British colonized the continent largely to take ownership of the textile industry, this topic is both instrumental and enormous. This essay, rather than being exhaustive, is meant to offer a scaffolding highlighting some key moments in textile history. Explore the ways the history of India and Indian textiles impacts your regular life.
Do you own a pair of blue jeans? If so, you can thank India. Now our English word denim comes from de Nîmes, the city in France, as Levi’s definitely has its precedents in 19th-century France (and Italy, but that’s a different essay). But the roots of jeans go back millennia to South Asia.
