Kashmir traditional dress| Traditional fashion of Kashmir

Fashion trend of Kashmir:

Kashmir is the beautifullest in India. Kashmiri women are among the most beautiful in India. They have "an English rosiness of complexion behind the Eastern tan". The colour of their hair ranges from golden red to brunette and that of eyes from green, blue, grey to black. Besides being boats-women and farmers, the women of Kashmir lend a hand to their men-folk at shawl making, embroidery and other handicrafts. 

 

The women wear the pheran, the voluminous Kashmiri gown, hemmed with a border and hanging in awkward folds. The long, loose pheran covers their physique no doubt, but does not blunt their physical appeal. Whereas a Muslim woman's pheran is knee-length, loose and embroidered in front and on the edges, a Hindu woman's pheran  touches her feet. For the sake of smartness and ease it is tied at the waist with folded material called lhungi.

 The long loose sleeves are fashionably decorated with brocade. With this type of Hindu costume goes the head-dress called taranga, which is tied to a hanging bonnet  and tapers down to the heels from behind. The folds of the taranga are made of brightly-pressed lines fastened to a pointed red-coloured and brocaded skull cap with a few gold pins at the sides. Over the head and ears are pieces of muslin embroidered in gold thread . The younger Hindu women, however have taken to the sari, after the 'reform movement' of the thirties. Even then, on the wedding day they have to wear the taranga ceremonially. It is covered with the palav of the bride's wedding sari. Taranga, thus stays as part of the bridal trousseau.

Unlike a Hindu woman's pheran, which gives her a Roman look, the Muslim woman's pheran is beautifully embroidered in front. Their head gear, the Kasaba, looks very different from the taranga. It is red in colour, tied turban-like and held tight by an abundance of silver pins and trinkets. It has an overhanging pin-scarf which falls grace fully over the shoulders. A work-a-day shalwar goes with it. Unmarried Muslim girls wear skull caps, embroidered with gold thread and embellished with silver pendants, trinkets and amulets.

With the passage of years, an appreciable change has come about in the dress of the Kashmiri women. Saris, shalwar-kameez, churidars and jeans are becoming popular, yet none of these belong to them as much as the good old pheran.

Ornaments:

Kashmiri women generally have such love of jewellery that their headgear, ears, necks and arms glisten with ornaments. The typical ornament that Hindu women wear is the dejharoo, a pair of gold pendants, hanging on a silk thread or gold chain which passes through holes in the ears pieced at the top end of the lobes. The dejharoo is the Kashmiri panditani's mangal-sutra. Muslim women wear bunches of ear rings, the weight of which is supported by a thick silver chain. And there are ample bracelets and necklaces. The whole ensemble lends a most artistic effect to the appearance of Kashmiri women.