Originally posted by: sashashyam
You are too serious about a tongue in cheek effort, my dear!😉
Purvi used to repeat her salwar suits endlessly even when she was not married. Our gang, Archana, Janhvi, Jyothi, and a few others, once offered to get up a collect to replenish her wardrobe, and there was much rejoicing when she suddenly lucked out and was seen in a couple of new outfits, one blue and the other pink😉. I am told Archana supplies her own wardrobe.
What I do not know is why all these extra wigs for Purvi; in the old days there was only one lamentable bump at the back, and on the odd occasions when they forgot to insert it, she looked much prettier!
It is not that there were no blouses at all till the 1800s or the 1900s, though that might have been the case in parts of India. I have it from my grandma, and she from hers They, I was told, used to wear a blouse with long sleeves, with one button at the top in front and the lower ends knotted together. Widows did not wear any blouse, and they also had shorn heads in those old days. My paternal grandma shaved her head, but no one else in the family after her did that, thank God!
As for medieval fashions, as regards the Mughal times (16th/17th centuries) and even earlier, we have concrete evidence in the miniature paintings, of both the Mughal school and the Rajasthani and the Pahari schools. What they wore then was, as you would remember from those paintings, like the chaniya choli now in Rajasthan, and a much heavier top dress in the Mughal areas, like Saswati Sen in kathak costume. The latter was the Islamic influence. That was naturally well before the memsahibs landed up, with their frumpy Victorian dress sense.
In ancient times, though there seems to be, as far as I am aware, no irrefutable evidence like the miniature paintings, the traditional dress seems to have been was what was called a koochabandham, like a bikini top, and the lehenga below, with or without a dupatta. That is why the classical statues in the old temples show the women in a koochabandham, that is when they were not shown as topless.
Of course they were more up front about their bodies in the days of Kalidasa, which was the 5th century AD, Or at least so the temple sculptures would have you believe, though there seems to be no other independent sartorial evidence. Why, if one read Kalidasa's very explicit descriptions of the female form, one would be shocked!
It is not a question of right and wrong at all, but of individual choice.
As for the 'if you have it, flaunt it 'approach, that is fine by me. But personally,I think that it is what is hinted at, and now shown, now hidden, is more tantalising than full on exposure. Though I still have quite a decent looking back, I would not wear a backless blouse, even to a party. The saree can be a very sensual garment if one wants it to be, with as much as 18 inches shown between a tiny blouse and a low hip saree, and to my mind, a backless blouse is a tad in your face and thus unnecessary.
For once, I hasten to add that this is my opinion, and I have nothing against those want to strut their stuff wherever! If they would only spare me the rolls of fat! But they never do😉.
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