What Is a Kurta?
The kurta is best known as a fixture of Indian dress and culture, but the garment is widely worn throughout southwest and south Asia. It is easily recognizable as far afield as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. With Indian cultural imports such as exotic cuisine, lively music and dance, and yoga becoming fixtures in the West, clothing like the kurta is finding its way out of the wardrobes of hippies and into the mainstream.
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Identification
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The kurta is a loose-fitting, collarless, long-sleeved shirt that falls to a point between the mid-thigh and the knees. Kurtas are therefore not meant to be tucked into trousers. Button-down necks are also common features of kurtas, but Muslim kurtas sometimes employ the "side open" style, with knot and loop buttons and the neck opening being offset to the wearer's left.
Style
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As a standard garment of south and southwest Asian fashion, kurtas are worn for both casual and formal occasions. They can be plain or highly decorative. They can be matched with any number of bottoms. In India, it is common to see them paired with either tight-fitting churidar trousers, or with the wraparound skirt-like dhoti. Hippies first started importing kurtas in the 1960s and wore them with jeans. This combination has since found its way back to India and is now popular around the world.
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Other Names
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Stemming from their colonial experiences, the British designated the kurta a "panjabi," and the term is still used interchangeably with kurta in the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Kurtas for Women
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When a kurta is worn by a woman, it is called a "kurti." When worn as a blouse, these kurtis are usually much shorter than the kurta worn by men. It is normal for them to fall between the waist and the mid-thigh, rather than between the mid-thigh and the knees.
Fabrics
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Kurtas are made from a variety of fabrics, with both summer and winter seasons in mind. Cotton is the norm for most kurtas, with silk being saved for formal kurtas. Wool is often used to make heavier kurtas. It is important to keep in mind that while a wool kurta might seem inappropriate to steamy Kerala or the sun-baked Ganges Plain, people in Afghanistan and the Himalaya highlands of Pakistan and India also wear these garments.
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References
- Photo Credit Wikimedia Commons
