KailiMen
A stitched checked lungi in green, maroon or blue, worn folded at the knee for work and let down in front of an elder. The plain white mundu is kept for temple, mosque and formality.
Worn for: Everyday
Malabar · Western Coastal Strip
Dress and textiles
The everyday marker that separates this coast from the rest of Kerala is colour. South of here the men's mundu is white; here the working garment is the kaili, a checked or striped lungi in strong colours, stitched into a tube and worn by Hindu and Muslim men alike. The garments that carry the region's identity, though, are worn once a year and weigh a great deal — the Theyyam's headdress and back-frame are carpentry as much as costume, and a large mudi has to be tilted through a gateway.
What is worn
Kaachi thuni and thattamMappila Muslim women
A coloured or checked wrapped lower garment with a long loose blouse and a head cloth, historically worn with heavy gold at the ears. It is a coastal trading community's dress with its own history, and it looks nothing like the cream-and-gold set worn further south.
Worn for: Everyday and weddings
Theyyam chamayamPerformers of the Vannan, Malayan, Velan, Pulayan, Mavilan and Koppalan communities
A skirt of split tender coconut frond, silver and red breastwork, brass anklets, a face painted in mineral pigment in a pattern fixed for each kolam, and the mudi — a headdress that in some forms rises several metres above the performer and is built on a bamboo and areca frame. Some kolams wear a costume that is set alight and danced in.
Worn for: Kaliyattam nights, Thulam to Edavam
Kalari kachaKalaripayattu practitioners
A long strip of cotton, several metres of it, wound tight round the waist and hips over a loincloth. It is protective equipment: it braces the lower back for the deep stances and jumps that the northern style opens with.
Worn for: Training
Oppana and wedding dressMappila brides and their parties
Heavy gold at the neck and ears, a worked head covering, and a seated bride at the centre of a clapping circle. The ornament is family capital as much as ornament, and in a matrilineal-influenced trading community it stayed with the woman.
Worn for: The night before a wedding
Weaves and textiles
Cannanore home furnishingsGI tagKannur
Jacquard-woven cotton furnishing cloth — bed linen, curtains, upholstery — produced on handlooms in and around Kannur, overwhelmingly for export, through weavers' cooperative societies. Registered as a geographical indication in 2009–10, and the largest surviving handloom economy in Kerala.
Kannur handloom mundu and thorthuKannur
The everyday cloth the same looms make for the local market — plain mundu, checked kaili and the thin absorbent thorthu towel that every household in the region owns half a dozen of.
Jewellery
Payyannur pavithra mothiram — a knotted gold ring worn for ancestral ritesKasu mala, the coin chainPoothali, the broad worked neck plateMappila gold ear ornaments, worn in stretched lobes in the older styleKolusu and heavy bangles as everyday gold
Traditional dress of Malabar — garments, handloom weaves, GI-tagged textiles and jewellery. (7)