The Study of the Indian Fashion System with a Special Emphasis on Women’s Everyday Wear

The versatile draped silhouettes & heritage craft traditions redefined for contemporary connoisseurs; have further led to the rising acceptance of Indian ethnic/ fusion fashion as a paradigm shift for India to discern and emphasize local inimitability, to create a sense of belonging and stimulate consumption of a culturally promoted “Global-Desi” fashion dictum across cultures. This paper presents the study of major factors contributing to the Indian fashion system interpreting its engagement with the Indian society and also the world. This research highlights impact of the Indian Fashion system on the Indian society and its meaning. There is continued interest for classical Indian dress silhouettes, heritage textile crafts, accessories; this study concentrates on outcomes through the lens of history, culture, and sociology of fashion. The neue urban tribes and social movements in the post modern era led emergence of the apparel category daywear including workwear, active wear, leisure wear and casual clothing where the code of fashion seems to blend in and emergence of independents style of dressing to suit individual requirements. The Neue urban tribe creates lasting footprints through interpretation of the Indian Fashion System enroute popular culture; interpretation of ideal beauty, power dressing in the 21st century Indians and inde fashion statements. The semiotic approach to decode the nuance of the Indian fashion system embedded in popular culture through visual media like, family albums, films, magazine articles, red carpets appearance etc. across the 80's, 90's and 2000 onwards. The neue Indian women perceive the sari, salwarkameez, kurti -tunic, as essential inclusions of their contemporary wardrobes as they rendezvous their global counterpart in quest of cool hunting (Fashion Identity), trendsetting. Thus number and variety in types of fashion apparel will have a positive relationship with the role of women in society and their education level, profession and will provide future trend directions for everyday wear. Operational Definitions Global-Desi (An Indian term for global yet local Indian, glocal; Neue Indians), Khadi (fabric which is hand spun and hand woven in India, often referred as Fabric of freedom) Power Dressing: The practice of dressing in a style intended to show that one holds an important position in business, politics, etc. Born in the second half of the 1970s and developed in the 1980s, power dressing is a fashion style that enables women to establish their authority in a professional and political environment traditionally dominated by men.