Early Modern South Asian Clothing

Early modern South Asian clothing combined wrapped cloth with sewn robes, trousers, sashes, and head coverings. Court outfits often paired a jama with fitted trousers and a sash, but a surviving Deccan robe, a Kashmir shawl, and a Bengali woman's portrait reveal different materials and settings.^4,22,24,26 This survey concentrates on examples from about 1500–1800; the medieval South Asian guide explains the earlier evidence.

Regional Clothing and Dated Examples

Region or setting	Dated example	What to look for
Akbar's court	Portrait of a courtier, c. 1575	Layered clothing, a sash, and weapons; the scarf may have been an imperial gift.27
Deccan, attributed to Burhanpur or Hyderabad	Seventeenth-century jama	Painted cotton with applied gold leaf and long sleeves gathered on the arms.22
Western India, probably Gujarat	Angarkha, late eighteenth–early nineteenth century	Fine cotton with silk embroidery; this particular surviving robe crosses the period boundary.4
Kashmir	Shawl panel, first half of the eighteenth century	Pashmina wool woven with a border of stylized flowering forms.26
Bengal-born Joanna de Silva, portrayed in England	Portrait, 1792	Indian textiles worn by an identified nursemaid, outside a royal setting.24

Mughal Court Dress

The Mughal Empire (1526–1858) fused Central Asian, Persian, and Indian clothing traditions into one of history's most opulent court wardrobes.^2,16 The jama, a long crossover robe tied at the side, became the foundation of Mughal male dress, worn over fitted trousers.^2,4,18,19 Courtiers might wear an angarkha (a chest-wrapping coat) in its place, and tie a patka (a wide sash) at the waist.^2,4 The court drew on the finest fabrics of the empire — gossamer-weight muslin from Bengal and fine woollen shawls from Kashmir, the home of pashmina and of shahtoosh, a wool so fine that its shawls are said to slide through a ring — while Varanasi wove heavy kimkhab brocade, its ground densely overlaid with gold and silk thread.^2,8,6,20

The courtier's portrait makes an outfit more concrete than a list of garment names. Cleveland's catalogue identifies the weapons as evidence of military service and suggests that the scarf held in his hand may commemorate an imperial gift. That last point is an interpretation, rather than a documented identification of the man. Clothing could record a relationship with the ruler as well as display fabric and cut.²⁷

Women of the Mughal court wore the peshwaz, a long, front-opening robe often made of sheer muslin, over pajama trousers, with a large head-cover or shawl.³ Jewelry completed the ensemble: a Rajasthani portrait of about 1725 shows a Muslim woman in a forehead ornament (mang tikka), a row of gold hoop earrings, and five strands of pearls, and Jahangir himself was painted in three layers of pearl necklaces.^17,2 Embroidery traditions included zardozi (gold wire embroidery) and chikankari (white-on-white embroidery, which may have begun in the Mughal period and later centered on Lucknow).^9,11 Punjabi phulkari (floral embroidery) is documented in later surviving work from before the 1947 Partition.¹⁰

These traditions need separate dates. The V&A's surviving peshwaz is a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century garment, made from muslin decorated with tinsel, spangles, and foil. Its label explains that the opening allowed movement over patterned trousers and that the style also reached northern Hindu courts.³ The Philadelphia Museum's phulkari exhibition includes twentieth-century work; it establishes the later Punjabi tradition, not a date for its invention under the Mughals.¹⁰

For a closer look at the jama, the patka, and Akbar's wardrobe rules, see Mughal clothing.

Textiles and Regional Traditions

South Asia's early modern textile production was famed for its technical sophistication and its worldwide reach.¹⁴ Dhaka muslin, woven from a rare local cotton called phuti karpas, was so sheer that a full-length sari was said to pass through a ring — it was known by poetic names such as "woven air" and "flowing water."^1,5 According to the Museum of Art & Photography, the Banarasi silk weavers of Varanasi supplied the Mughal court from the 17th century, producing brocades with intricate floral patterns in gold zari thread.^7,8 Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, writing for Sahapedia, finds no mention of silk fabrics being produced in Banaras until the nineteenth century, so this early history is uncertain.²¹ Meanwhile, the chintz trade — painted and printed cotton from the Coromandel Coast — conquered global markets, with Indian fabrics reaching Europe, Southeast Asia, and East Africa in enormous quantities.^12,13,14,15

Regional dress remained distinct beneath the Mughal overlay, and as Mughal power declined, patronage shifted to regional courts with their own styles.¹⁸ In the south, a seventeenth-century painted textile shows the kings of Vijayanagara in lavish Islamicate robes in public but, in private, bare-chested with only a lungi wrapped around the waist.² Draped, unstitched garments remain the norm there: South Indian women wear the sari in styles that vary with climate and community, and men the dhoti, a cloth wrapped and tucked around the lower body.¹⁸ Rajput courts in western India developed their own brilliant aesthetic, favoring vivid bandhani (tie-dye) cloth, flared angarkha robes, and, for women, wide skirts called ghaghra.^2,4,18 The interaction between Mughal courtly fashion and these regional traditions created a textile culture of extraordinary richness and variety.

For regional sari weaves and drapes, see the history of the sari.

Rajput and Southern Court Dress

Mehrangarh's late eighteenth- to early nineteenth-century angarkha, probably from Gujarat, has silk embroidery on white cotton. Its unusual vertical opening differs from the curved opening more typical of the garment. Construction varied even within one category.⁴

Vijayanagara offers a different comparison. Jagjeet Lally describes men's public court clothing as a long tunic called kabayi, worn with a sash and a tall cap called kullayi. These were associated with political duties, while wrapped lower cloth and an uncovered upper body could be worn in private. The distinction concerns setting as well as religious or regional identity: a single ruler could dress differently for an audience and away from court.¹⁹

Deccan Painted Cotton and Kashmir Wool

Cotton could be a luxury material. The Met's seventeenth-century jama, attributed to Burhanpur or Hyderabad in the Deccan, is painted with poppies and embellished with gold leaf. Its long sleeves were gathered up when worn. This is a useful counterexample to a simple hierarchy in which every splendid robe must be silk and every cotton garment belongs to a poor wearer.²²

Painted cloth also survives as furnishings. A Deccan hanging of about 1640–50 portrays figures in an architectural setting. It records representations of clothing, while the cotton itself preserves the dyer's work. The Met's study explains how painters and dyers shared responsibility for such textiles: controlling mordants and dye baths was as important as drawing the design.²³

Kashmir supplies a different material and technique. A shawl panel dated to the first half of the eighteenth century is woven from pashmina wool in double-interlocking twill tapestry. Its edge carries clustered flowering motifs that the Met describes as developing into the form called bota. Here the ornament is woven into the fabric, unlike the painted flowers and applied gold on the Deccan robe.^26,22 The later history continues in nineteenth-century South Asian clothing.

Clothing Beyond Royal Portraits

Joanna de Silva provides a rare named example outside the court. Born in Bengal, she worked as a nursemaid in an East India Company officer's household. William Wood painted her in England in 1792, after she had accompanied an orphaned child there. The Met identifies her clothing as Indian textiles. This is evidence of one working woman's dress for a portrait, rather than a standard servant's uniform or a picture of her daily tasks.²⁴

An eighteenth-century drawing from Chamba shows another difficulty in identifying wearers. Catalogued as Dancing Minstrel or Gaddi Shepherd, it belongs to imagery of traveling holy men and satirical representations of hill shepherd groups. The Met discusses short skirts and feathered crowns associated with these figures, but keeps the man's identity tentative. Performance dress should not automatically become a reconstruction of what every shepherd wore while working.²⁵

These examples broaden the picture while leaving real gaps. A named sitter, a devotional or comic figure, and a surviving court robe each tell us something different. They cannot establish one outfit for all rural workers or all women across the subcontinent.

Cloth for Local Use and Overseas Trade

Trade moved both expensive and more ordinary fabrics. Lally records a 1589 transaction between a Multan merchant and a Samarkandi nobleman that included coarse and fine calico, Bengali handkerchiefs, chintz, and Gujarati silk brocade. The range matters: textiles circulated in different grades and for different purposes.¹⁹

The Met's account of Indian textile production traces how European companies entered established Asian trading networks. The English East India Company received its charter in 1600 and the Dutch company was founded in 1602; textiles bought in India could be exchanged for Southeast Asian spices before direct European markets expanded.²⁸ A cloth's place of manufacture therefore does not, by itself, establish the identity or dress customs of its eventual wearer.

Sources

1. How Modern Researchers Are Trying to Recreate a Long-Lost Fabric — Livia Gershon, Smithsonian Magazine, 2021.Reference 1
2. The Emperor's New Clothes: Fashion, Politics, and Identity in Mughal South Asia — Simran Agarwal, The Public Domain Review, 2025 (jama, patka, bandhani at the Mughal and Rajput courts).
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3. Peshwaz — Victoria and Albert Museum (Mughal or Deccan, late 18th–early 19th century; "the usual dress of Muslim court ladies," worn over trousers with a head-cover).
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4. Textiles — Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur (angarkha, turbans, ghaghara; Mughal jama adopted by Jodhpur's rulers).
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5. The Romance of Indian Muslin — Aditi Shah, Live History India, 2019 (the poetic names abi-rawan and baft-hawa).Reference 1
6. Shahtoosh Dealers Plead Guilty in Landmark Case — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2000 ("ring shawls" woven in Jammu and Kashmir).Reference 1
7. Saris, Odhanis and More: Woven Tales from India — Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, Google Arts & Culture (Banarasi weavers producing saris, patkas, turbans, and costumes "since the 17th century for the Mughal court").Reference 1
8. Banarasi Sarees and Textiles — Dastkari Haat Samiti, Google Arts & Culture (kinkhab, its ground "completely overlaid" with gold and silk pattern; floral butis in zari).
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9. Goldwork from Agra — Gillian Vogelsang, Textile Research Centre, Leiden, 2017 (zar-dozi "gold work" and Mughal embroidered hangings).Reference 1
10. Phulkari: The Embroidered Textiles of Punjab from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection — Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2017.
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11. Chikan — TRC Needles, Textile Research Centre, Leiden.Reference 1
12. Palampore (Coromandel Coast, c. 1700–1750) — Victoria and Albert Museum.Reference 1
13. Indian Chintz: A History — Asian Art Newspaper, 2020 (on the Royal Ontario Museum's Cloth that Changed the World).Reference 1
14. Traded Treasure: Indian Textiles for Global Markets — Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 2019.
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15. Short Teaching Module: Precolonial Kenya, a Small-Scale History — David Bresnahan, World History Commons (Gujarati cloth on the Swahili coast).Reference 1
16. Mughal Textiles — Asian Art Newspaper (Mughal period 1526–1858; velvets woven under the influence of Iranian weavers settled in India).Reference 1
17. Portrait of a Muslim Woman — Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M.85.284.1 (Bikaner, Rajasthan, c. 1725; mang tikka, hoop earrings, five strands of pearls).Reference 1
18. Asia, South: History of Dress — Jasleen Dhamija, Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, via Encyclopedia.com (Mughal decline shifting patronage to regional courts; south Indian saris and the dhoti).
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19. Fashion and Empire in Early Modern South Asia, c. 1500–1800 — Jagjeet Lally, author's manuscript, UCL Discovery, University College London, 2021 (the jama as "a standard component of court dress," its tie fastenings worn to the left or the right).
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20. Shawl (Kashmir, early 19th century) — Victoria and Albert Museum (Kashmir shawls woven from the fleece of wild goats and from pashmina, the wool of domesticated goats).Reference 1
21. Woven Embroidery: The Brocades of Banaras — Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, Sahapedia (no mention of silk fabrics produced in Banaras until the nineteenth century).Reference 1
22. Man's Robe (Jama) with Poppies — Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.135 (seventeenth century; attributed to Burhanpur or Hyderabad; painted cotton and gold leaf).
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23. Painting with Dyes in Early Modern South Asia — Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016 (painted cotton production and a Deccan hanging of c. 1640–50).Reference 1
24. Joanna de Silva — William Wood, 1792, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020.234 (a Bengal-born nursemaid portrayed in England).
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25. Dancing Minstrel or Gaddi Shepherd — Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025.276 (eighteenth-century Chamba drawing; tentative identification of the figure).Reference 1
26. Panel from a Shawl — Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998.217 (Kashmir, first half of the eighteenth century; pashmina and twill tapestry).
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27. A Mughal courtier — Cleveland Museum of Art (court of Akbar, c. 1575; military service and a possible gift scarf).
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28. Indian Textiles: Trade and Production — Marika Sardar, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003 (Asian textile trade and European companies).Reference 1