Dhoti, kurta and safed pagriMen, rural Upper Doab
White cotton throughout, with the turban tied flat and broad. At a khap gathering the white is close to a uniform.
Worn for: Everyday and panchayat
Antarved Doab · Upper Indus–Gangetic Plain
Dress and textiles
Dress in the Doab is agrarian in the north and mercantile in the middle. The Jat and Tyagi villages of the Upper Doab keep the dhoti, kurta and white cotton pagri of the khap country; the qasbah towns of the Central Doab keep the sherwani and the Aligarh cut of pyjama that carries the town's name across India.
What is worn
Aligarhi pyjamaMen
A narrow, tapering pyjama gathered at the waist and cut close at the ankle, worn under a sherwani or kurta. Named for the town, and standard formal wear well beyond it.
Worn for: Formal
Ghagra, kurti and odhnaWomen, rural
A gathered skirt with a long veil in the west of the region, giving way to the sari as you move east and south.
Worn for: Everyday
Sherwani and achkanMen
The qasbah formal coat, tailored in Aligarh, Rampur and Delhi. Aligarh Muslim University's dress conventions helped keep it in circulation.
Worn for: Formal and wedding
Weaves and textiles
Farrukhabad hand block printGI tagFarrukhabad
Large-repeat floral block printing in vegetable and mineral colours on cotton, historically for tent panels, canopies and bedcovers rather than for clothing. A registered geographical indication.
Khadi and handloom of the Doab townsMeerut, Etawah, Kanpur
Coarse cotton weaving that survived as a nationalist industry and continues through cooperative societies in the district towns.
Kanpur leatherKanpur
Not a textile but the region's largest cloth-adjacent industry — tanneries and saddleries along the Ganga that once shod and harnessed an imperial army and now supply a global footwear trade, at a known cost to the river.
Jewellery
Heavy silver hansli, kadha and payal in the Jat villagesGlass and lac bangles from FirozabadNath and jhumkaGold in the trading towns, worn as savings
Traditional dress of Antarved Doab — garments, handloom weaves, GI-tagged textiles and jewellery. (7)