Kullu & Mandi · Western Himalaya & Trans-Himalaya
This is the one Himachali region whose dress became a national object. The Kullu shawl — plain woollen ground with a band of bold geometric pattern across each end — is a twentieth-century development of a much older plain wrap, and it happened because weavers from the Kinnaur side brought patterned weaving into the valley and a cooperative movement gave it a market. The cap that goes with it does the same job in miniature, and the colour of its band is read across Himachal as a statement about the wearer.
What is worn
A woollen wrap with plain body and patterned patti borders in five to eight colours, worked in geometric figures — diamonds, chevrons, stepped triangles — across each end. Worn over the shoulders in winter and given at weddings and to guests, which is why almost every household owns several it never wears.
Worn for: Everyday and formal
A heavy woollen rectangle wrapped over the inner garment, brought over both shoulders and pinned there with a pair of silver brooches, then belted at the waist with a woven sash. It is the older garment the shawl descends from, and in the upper villages it is still worn as clothing rather than as costume.
Worn for: Everyday in the villages, ceremonial elsewhere
A flat woollen cap with an upright band of patterned patti across the front, in the same geometric vocabulary as the shawl border. The band's colour is read politically across Himachal — green and maroon are each taken as a party allegiance — which means putting one on is never quite a neutral act.
Worn for: Everyday, formal and political
A long coarse woollen coat and a plain blanket-wrap, both home-woven, worn in the upper valleys and by herding households in preference to anything bought.
Worn for: Winter and the high pastures
A square head-cloth folded and knotted behind, used against sun, rain and the pressure of a headload.
Worn for: Everyday
Weaves and textiles
Registered as a geographical indication. Woven on pit and frame looms in local sheep wool, merino, angora and sometimes pashmina, with the patterned end-borders that define it worked by hand while the plain body is not. The patterned style is generally credited to Bushahri weavers from the Kinnaur side who settled in the valley in the first half of the twentieth century; before that the Kullu wrap was plain. Cooperative societies, beginning with the Bhutti weavers in 1944, turned a household craft into an industry employing thousands.
Plain and lightly banded wrap cloth, blankets and coat material spun and woven at home from the family's own fleece. The undyed grey and brown ground is the natural colour of the sheep, not a dye choice.
The geometric border grammar itself, which came over the Sutlej divide with Kinnauri weavers and was adapted to Kullu's coarser yarn and wider loom. Kinnaur's own shawl tradition is a separate registered craft belonging to the neighbouring region.
Jewellery
Traditional dress of Kullu & Mandi — garments, handloom weaves, GI-tagged textiles and jewellery. (8)