🇳🇵 The sarees of Nepal
5 sarees from Nepal, best known first, across 1 centre or state.
Newar dress from the Kathmandu Valley rests on homespun cloth, woven on household looms and sent to dyer families for colour. Its best known woman's garment is the hāku patāsi, a black sari with a red border. Men wear the tapālan shirt and suruwā trousers.
- Hāku patāsi is a black cotton sari with a red border, worn with a tied blouse called misālan.
- Sayn kaytā, baggy raw silk trousers, took six yards of cloth per pair.
- A spinning wheel and a seed separator were traditional bridal gifts.
- Weaving at home in the Kathmandu Valley continued until the 1960s.
- Parsi saris, worn by some Newar women, could be twenty yards long.
Sarees in Nepal
The Newar people are native to the Kathmandu Valley and the land around it. Their clothes were once worn across a wide social range: old noble families, traders, farmers, artisans and salaried workers all dressed in versions of the same set. Almost everything began at home. Cloth was spun and woven on family looms, and a spinning wheel and a seed separator were among the gifts a bride was expected to bring. Colour came afterwards, from the dyers. Written evidence reaches back to 1721, when the Jesuit traveller Ippolito Desideri passed through Kathmandu and noted knee-length jackets in wool or cotton, ankle-length trousers, a red cap and slippers. Men's and women's dress share a small vocabulary of ties, sashes and wraps rather than buttons.
Weaves and fabrics
Cloth was largely homespun. Weaving counted as a major trade in the Kathmandu Valley, and many households kept a handloom. Raw silk was the material for sayn kaytā, the baggy men's trousers once worn by merchants and courtiers, with six yards needed for one pair. Hāku patāsi is cotton. Parsi saris came in plain or printed cloth and could run to twenty yards. Brocade appears in ceremonial wear, and wool or cotton in the jackets Desideri described in the 1720s.
How it is worn
Women's hāku patāsi is a black sari bordered in red, worn with a blouse called misālan that fastens with cloth ties, and a shawl, gā, over the upper body. The parsi, worn by some classes of women, was pleated heavily, the pleats gathered at the front and knotted together with string. Men's dress is a long shirt, tapālan, over tight suruwā trousers, sometimes with a waistcoat or coat. Sayn kaytā, baggy trousers, are gathered at the knee, tied with string, and held at the waist with a drawstring, worn with a long shirt secured by cloth ties and a cotton cummerbund.
Dyeing, printing and embroidery
Dyeing was a separate trade. Cloth left the weaver's house and went to families known as Chhipa, now called Ranjit or Ranjitkar, who gave it colour. Ceremonial dress brings in other skills: brocade for the vest and cap a child wears at the first rice feeding, and silk and brocade in adult styles for the girls' Ihi and Baray rites. Priests wear ankle-length pleated gowns for religious service. Caps, turbans and crowns finish the ceremonial outfits.
Weaving centres
The Kathmandu Valley is the home ground of this dress, and weaving was a leading occupation there. Household looms were common, and until the 1960s women could be seen warping yarn out in the streets. In 1973 Nepal's postal service put the valley's costume on a commemorative stamp, a woman in hāku patāsi beside a man in tapālan, as one of a set covering dress from different parts of the country. An earlier stamp that year showed a painting of the same valley costume.
Weddings, festivals and daily wear
Hāku patāsi stays in wide use. Farmer women wear it daily, and it is the favourite choice for festivals. Tapālan and suruwā have moved to special occasions, official functions and celebrations, though many older men still wear them every day. Both are seen at wedding processions and when Newar communities mark the start of Nepal Sambat. Wedding parties, coming-of-age rites, first rice feedings, old-age ceremonies and investitures all have their own prescribed dress.
The weavers and their communities
Weavers worked at home, making cloth for their own families or to sell. Brides came with spinning equipment. Dyeing belonged to the Chhipa caste group, whose descendants are now known as Ranjit or Ranjitkar. Home weaving lasted into the 1960s. The clothes themselves served aristocrats, merchants, farmers, craftsmen and professionals, so the people who made them were woven into ordinary valley life rather than set apart.
The saree today
Home weaving faded after the 1960s, and most of these garments now come out for ceremonies. Tapālan and suruwā are worn at functions and festivals; hāku patāsi remains everyday dress for many farming women. The state has marked the dress too, with postage stamps in 1973 showing the valley's traditional costume.
The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "Newar traditional clothing", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. EveryPallu rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
Weaving centres and states of Nepal
🇮🇳 India and 4 moreSariसाड़ी
A single unstitched length of cloth, tucked at the waist and slung over one shoulderSilk · Brocade · Ikat
🇳🇵 NepalChaubandi Cholo
A cotton blouse from Nepal, wrapped on and often printed in red and whiteCotton
🇮🇳 India and 4 moreWoodblock printing on textiles
Patterns pressed onto cloth with hand-carved wooden blocks, the chhapa of South Asia.Linen · Block print
🇮🇳 India and 3 moreDupattaदुपट्टा, دوپٹہ
A versatile long scarf and veil draped with traditional ensembles across South AsiaSilk · Brocade · Tie-dye
🇮🇳 India and 4 moreEri silk
A wild silk from northeast India, spun from cocoons the moth has leftEri
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Eri silk: Simtastic01, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Sari: Suyash.dwivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Woodblock printing on textiles: William Morris, Public domain, source
- Chaubandi Cholo: This file is a work by Ester Inbar ( user:ST or he:user:ST ). More of, Attribution, source
- Dupatta: Kinshuk Sunil, CC BY 2.0, source