KURTA PYJAMA :

Kurta Pyjama refers to the set comprising a long shirt and pants that are everyday wear throughout India. And nothing is more evocative of summer to my mind than a kurta pyjama in white organdie with “Chikan” embroidery. “Chikan” embroidery uses motifs that are as codified as the words of a language, originally always in white. There are connoisseur versions so deliciously refined that they almost rival Brussels lace.  However, I prefer the candid allure of the basic kurta, a true lesson in innocence and freshness. Paradoxically, it is this very simplicity that was so hard to find and create in every detail. Because if we want candidness, we want to achieve it in the proper fashion, and we can only tolerate it when it is made of pure cotton, and not the current synthetic versions. As is so often the case, there is a contradiction between what we want in terms of simplicity and what we will not tolerate as imperfection, which makes dialogue between cultures arduous. We therefore trekked as far as Lucknow, its city of origin, because it seemed to me that this timeless garment deserves to be a “classic” in our wardrobes in precisely the same way as a blue and white striped sailor’s jersey.