There is a smell that goes with this subject, and anyone raised around Punjabi relatives knows it: the inside of a heavy wooden ਅਲਮਾਰੀ — almari — "wardrobe", where naphthalene and old silk have come to an understanding. Somewhere in there is a shawl nobody is allowed to touch. Somewhere else are shoes with curled toes, stiff as wood, worn twice. Punjabi dress is practical and unfussy at the everyday level, and then, on the days that matter, becomes some of the most gloriously excessive clothing on earth.
Salwar kameez: the everyday uniform
The ਸਲਵਾਰ ਕਮੀਜ਼ — salwar kameez — is the standard dress of Punjabi women and, in various forms, of many Punjabi men too: loose trousers, a long tunic, and a length of cloth across the shoulders.
The salwar is the trouser — wide at the hip, gathered into a drawstring waist, tapering to a narrow cuff at the ankle. The traditional Punjabi cut uses a great deal of fabric and falls in deep pleats. The kameez is the tunic worn over it, with side slits from the hip down so the wearer can move, sit cross-legged and work.
Regional variations abound. The ਪਟਿਆਲਾ ਸਲਵਾਰ — Patiala salwar — is the most dramatic: enormously wide, sometimes several metres of cloth, falling in thick concertina folds that swing when the wearer walks. It is a favourite for gidda, where the movement is the point. At the other extreme, the churidar is a fitted legging gathered into tight rings at the ankle, and the plain straight-cut trouser is what most working women actually wear on a Tuesday.
The great virtue of the salwar kameez is that it scales. The same silhouette in cotton is housework clothing; in georgette with mirror work it is a wedding guest; in heavy silk with real embroidery it is the bride's mother.
The dupatta
The ਦੁਪੱਟਾ — dupatta — literally "two panels" — is the long scarf that completes the outfit, and far more than an accessory. It moves constantly: pulled over the head on entering a gurdwara, drawn close in front of elders, thrown back to free the arms for work. A woman who covers her head as an older relative arrives is performing a small, fluent act of respect. In the gurdwara, covering the head is required of everyone, and the dupatta is simply what is to hand.
Phulkari: flower work
If Punjab has one great textile art, it is ਫੁਲਕਾਰੀ — phulkari — "flower work": an embroidery technique in which floss silk thread, historically called pat, is worked in darning stitch on a coarse hand-spun cotton base, usually dyed deep madder red, rust or indigo.
The remarkable thing about phulkari is that it is worked from the reverse side of the cloth. The embroiderer counts threads on the back and the design emerges on the face — which is why classic phulkari is so precisely geometric, all diamonds, chevrons and stylised wheat, rather than free-flowing floral drawing.
There are grades. An everyday phulkari has scattered motifs on visible ground cloth. A ਬਾਗ — bagh — "garden" — is the aristocrat of the form: the embroidery covers the base cloth entirely, and a single bagh could take years of intermittent work. Baghs were made by grandmothers for granddaughters' weddings, and a family's stock of them measured both wealth and love invested.
Phulkari suffered badly after the upheavals of the twentieth century, when many of the households that sustained it were displaced. Today it survives through revival co-operatives and machine-made versions on dupattas and jackets, while antique baghs sit in museum collections. If your family has one, it is probably the most valuable object in the house, and not principally in money.
Kurta pyjama and the men's wardrobe
Men's everyday dress is the ਕੁੜਤਾ ਪਜਾਮਾ — kurta pyjama — a long loose shirt over drawstring trousers. Cotton in summer, khadi or wool in winter, it is worn by everyone from a farmer to a groom, the difference being fabric and finish.
Older and more rural is the ਚਾਦਰਾ — chadra — also called tehmat: a length of cloth knotted at the waist instead of trousers, cool in heat and unrestrictive in the fields. It survives most visibly in bhangra costume, where the chadra with a short embroidered waistcoat and a bright turban has become the stage uniform of the dance.
Over the top goes a waistcoat, and in cold weather a shawl or a loi. And on the head, for Sikh men and many others, is the turban — a subject with enough history and technique to warrant its own guide.
The jutti
The ਜੁੱਤੀ — jutti — is the leather shoe of Punjab and an object of genuine craft. Traditionally made by hand from vegetable-tanned leather, it has no left or right: a new pair is identical, and the shoes shape themselves to the wearer's feet over the first weeks, which is why the first weeks hurt.
The upper is where the work goes: embroidery in silk thread, gold and silver zari, tiny mirrors, beadwork, sometimes shells. Styles vary by region and maker — Patiala is known for ornate embroidery, other centres for the pointed toe that in its most extravagant form curls right back on itself.
Men's juttis tend to be plainer, in tan or black leather, and are genuinely everyday footwear. Women's run to full colour. In the diaspora they have had a real second life: juttis under jeans are entirely normal at a mehndi night in Toronto, and they are among the easiest ways to signal where you are from without a full outfit.
The parandi
The ਪਰਾਂਦੀ — parandi — sometimes paranda — is a tasselled cord braided into a woman's plait: silk or cotton thread, often black or brightly coloured, ending in heavy pom-poms or beaded tassels that swing well below the waist.
Its function is practical and decorative: it lengthens and thickens the braid, holds the plait secure, and adds weight so the hair moves with the body. In gidda it is essential, and folk songs are full of references to it. A parandi is a classic gift from a mother or an aunt.
Wedding finery
Everything above turns up several notches for a wedding.
The bride traditionally wears red — a salwar kameez, a lehenga (full skirt, fitted blouse, long dupatta), or in the older Punjabi form a salu, worked in zari, tilla or dabka thread. On her arms goes the ਚੂੜਾ — chooda — the set of red and ivory bangles given by her maternal uncle in a ceremony of its own. Hanging from them are the ਕਲੀਰੇ — kalire — umbrella-shaped ornaments later shaken over the heads of unmarried friends. Add jhumka earrings, a tikka, and a nose ring, the nath.
The groom typically wears a sherwani, a long fitted coat, with a turban tied in a festive style and topped by a ਕਲਗੀ — kalgi — an ornamental plume. Over his face, in many families, hangs the sehra, a curtain of flowers or beads.
Practice varies enormously between families, regions and generations. Some brides wear the full traditional red; some wear pastel; some change three times in a day. Nobody in Punjab has ever agreed on this and nobody needs to.
Wearing it now
The most common worry among diaspora Punjabis is looking like a tourist in their own culture. It is needless. A plain cotton kurta over jeans is unremarkable in any Punjabi household. A dupatta over the head in a gurdwara is simply courtesy. Juttis are shoes.
And if there is a phulkari at the back of somebody's almari, ask about it. You will get the shawl, and the far more interesting thing folded up with it: the name of the woman who made it.