Dress thumbnail 1
Not on display

Dress

20th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This woman's dress from Northern Pakistan has an astonishing 524 triangular and rectangular panels inserted into the skirt to provide a swirling mass of fabric around the knee-length hemline. The use of prodigious amounts of cloth is also a feature of other types of dress from this region, for example the immensely wide-waisted trousers formerly worn by both men and women. It is not clear whether this taste for extra cloth is a response to the harsh climate in this remote mountainous region or a form of modesty that hides the outlines of the legs.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Cotton embroidered with silk
Brief description
Woman's embroidered cotton dress, Pakistan, 20th century.
Physical description
This cotton dress ('jumlo') with silk embroidery is in the Indus Kohistan style but the embroidery, apart from the added cuffs which are done in cross stitch, is in a surface darn stitch like the Swati shawls and kurtas.
Dimensions
  • Height: 90cm
  • Across sleeves width: 182cm
Summary
This woman's dress from Northern Pakistan has an astonishing 524 triangular and rectangular panels inserted into the skirt to provide a swirling mass of fabric around the knee-length hemline. The use of prodigious amounts of cloth is also a feature of other types of dress from this region, for example the immensely wide-waisted trousers formerly worn by both men and women. It is not clear whether this taste for extra cloth is a response to the harsh climate in this remote mountainous region or a form of modesty that hides the outlines of the legs.
Bibliographic references
  • Colours of the Indus : costume and textiles of Pakistan / Nasreen Askari and Rosemary Crill. London: Merrell Holberton in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1997 Number: 1858940443 pp.132-133, ill. p. 209
  • Dress in detail from around the world / Rosemary Crill, Jennifer Wearden and Verity Wilson ; with contributions from Anna Jackson and Charlotte Horlyck ; photographs by Richard Davis, drawings by Leonie Davis. London: V&A Publications, 2002 Number: 1851773770 (hbk), 1851773789 (pbk) pp.166-167
Collection
Accession number
IS.33-1996

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Record createdNovember 12, 2002
Record URL
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