Simply Style or Simply Living?
By, Shabri Wable
Pastoralism has always charmed the city bred, at least the more romantic urban folks. We admire their ruggedness, their simplicity and ingenuity yet try to adopt their way of dress, and look amateurish at best. Surely the secret runs deeper than the fabric and the cut of the garment. Confidence and comfort makes for effortless style and pastoralists seem to be that, and also a picture of swag.
While the denizens of the cities hope to assert individuality by way of their clothing, entire communities of pastoralists wear almost identical clothes, often in the same colour. How do they feel comfortable in the coarsest wools, extreme volumes, drawstrings, heavy embroidery and the chunkiest jewellery?
Perhaps the confidence comes from conforming, and belonging to a community. The wool is from the flock of a person’s sheep, hand spun by a loved one and then dyed, felted, knitted, or woven in the village by someone they grew up with. However coarse the wool is, if hand knitted by the wife, or hand spun by the father, how could it not be comforting and wholesome. Perhaps just like home food. The roomy clothes are comfortable for sure, but also lend themselves perfectly to quilts in their afterlife. The cut is simple geometry- the quadrilateral of a fabric is cut into most rudimentary shapes that can be easily turned back into a rectangle of a quilt to give it a new life.
Strings and drawstrings are often used to allow for pregnancies, mood swings of the body and probably allow for sharing of clothes. Embellishment in the form of embroidery is a tradition, a form of expression, an outlet, and also a showcase of skill. There is a lot going on, in the circle of similarly dressed pastoralists. Not easy to detect, when seen closely the individual in the conformist emerges. A well worn ring that has taken the contours of the fingers, a bidi and a bunch of keys tied to the jacket string, a hidden pocket or a flash of beadwork on the drawstring all worn with easy nonchalance.
The dressing and adorning goes far beyond the human family — their wider family of camels, horses, ponies, cattle, sheep and goat are also lovingly dressed. children build special friendships with young lambs and goat kids. They turn friends, and the animal friends are decked up with fabric scraps and trinkets, a display of the creativity and resourcefulness of its human-mate. It is not unusual to find a pony saddled with a wool felt made from the fleece of sheep herded by his master, or to find new born lambs snuggled in the Chola, woollen coat, of a Gaddi — the wool from the herd holding man and lamb together in a warm hug. The same Chola also carries the Gaddi’s food and belongings, and the dora — a woollen belt holding the vast coat together, is useful in pulling out fallen sheep during the day, becoming a pillow at night.
Pastoralist clothes then are not just covering the back but are living and evolving just as the wearer inside them.
Many of us who are a part of urban society are driven by change and perhaps make everyday improvements in our lives. This constant drive often gives way to a sense of displacement and perhaps even chaos. For the pastoralist, always on the move and often setting up camps, clothing is the much needed constant, a companion crafted by the caring hand. While we, surrounded by creature comforts, yearn for the idyllic, traditional society of the pastoralist is often described as idyllic.
This idyllic life is only possible because pastoral societies are built on grit and gumption. In their daily life of harsh weather, physical exertion and watching out for the flock, very little of the self can be carried or cared for. When on the move, every item is a life-force on the back. There is only the bare minimum of material things between human and nature. In the wide horizons of nature when one has become part of the scenery, become insignificant, what allure will the man-made have if it is not deeply personal?
Few years ago, a Rabari embroidery artisan opened my eyes to the core of style. Kuverben, my colleague on a project, is an expert embroiderer with a great sense of composition and an instinct to know what works. While selecting embroidery threads I noticed that she would always pick deep shades of green, blue, red and purple regardless of the fabric we were working on. Irked, I asked her if she even looked at the fabrics before selecting the embroidery threads and pat came her reply, “But these are Rabari colours!” I can see it now, being stylish is being comfortable in your own skin. Do we recognise ourselves in what we wear?
Shabri Wable is a clothes maker based in Kachchh interested in handmade, upcycling, indigenous clothing and vernacular pattern making.
