Unkind cuts: a design story

STYLE

Apart from the scorching summer heat, what is killing me these days is one garment that summer throws up, the patiala salwar.

The patiala salwar was once favoured by the Patiala royals and as time passed it became a summer staple, a garment that took the humble regular salwar to a more dressier and stylish level.

If you wanted to wear Indian clothing and wished to appear more sophisticated, you wore a patiala salwar. And a well-tailored patiala is worth having a closet full of regular salwars.

And yet this very patiala is causing me much grief when I see women, even those who consider themselves to be fashionistas, wearing what has become a travesty of the patiala salwar.

And the culprits behind this rape of the patiala salwar are those retailers that are trying to sell their clothing lines as quickly as possible in as large quantities as possible. And the patiala salwar, which requires at least five metres of fabric to give enough folds as opposed to the regular salwar which requires only half that much fabric, is being sold at a price point that wouldn't be possible if the retailers did use that much fabric.

And yet, given the patiala salwar's enduring popularity, retailers are forced to keep them on their shelves and they do that by, literally, cutting corners.

So the five metres are whittled down to the bare minimum and what you get is an ugly hybrid, a cross between a salwar and the patiala, and that's not a pretty sight. There really should be a fashion police force out there to catch all those guilty of wearing and selling this piece of ugliness.

Even though consumers are now willing to pay substantially more for clothes, unfortunately Indian clothing retailers are still trying to take the easy way out instead of investing in some original designing which may have lead to a happier solution than what is currently being sold in stores, even upmarket clothing brand stores.

And that is why many women who do like to put on pretty clothes on a regular basis are awaiting the arrival of brands like Zara, for these brands have understood that cheap fashion need not necessarily be butt-ugly (the larger question of the impact of fast fashion on the environment, economy, and stuff like that is a different matter and has been touched upon in this column a few weeks ago) and badly cut.

As Indians become more fashion aware and spend even more than what they already do on clothes, they are going to (and not a day too soon) demand clothes (both Indian and Western) that are cut well and look good instead of making them look like badly-outfitted clowns in a cheap circus.

And giving good cuts at a reasonable price isn't really not as tough as these Indian labels are trying to make it seem. In fact, there are tailors even now in the Punjab who claim that their forefathers stitched the patiala for the Patiala royal family in the good old days and have inherited the correct technique to do so.

What is stopping big retailers from accessing these tailors and getting them to do large orders of this garment? Is it because, retailers feel that pretty much anything that they dole out will be bought off their shelves because there still isn't that much choice available for the consumer who wants great clothes at decent prices (just for the record, anything over Rs 5,000 for regular, everyday wear can be classified as indecent).

Hey guys, shed the lethargy and the don't-give-a-damn attitude and get your act together and give us some good clothes.

Otherwise, there's always Zara to look forward to. And if you think that Zara won't have good Indian clothes, who knows, like McDonald's has had to modify its burgers especially for the Indian palatte, Zara and other big international high street retailers may get into the salwar kameez business just for the Indian market. And then, maybe, the patiala salwar will be restored to its original glory.