The best advice I got as a young scribe is ‘don’t be a writer, be writing’ but as one grew up, the world changed. You had to dress the part to be believable to others, and this belief of others reinforced yours. It was an acknowledgement from the reflection, that you yourself set in motion; ‘so dark the con of man’.

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Sports as armour Sportswear has been given a warrior makeover; even as cricket comes to symbolise war. Now you have Under Armour, Admiral and what not. Designed to radiate competence, whether they are actually utilitarian or not is not really quantifiable. Trunks are aerodynamic and leggings breathe, sports bras will have you sweat proof. The focus is on performance and the epithet has transferred from the athlete to the clothing.

The athlete is marked out in colours of ‘bleed blue’ or Manchester Red Devils, or even the referee, in wrestling or football, holding back an army of muscled-men by the authority of his black-and-white.

Everything that requires a modicum of trust becomes white. Be it the doctor’s uniform, the chef’s apron or even the pharmacist’s jacket; even though the pharmacist has no pressure of bodily fluid or indeed food spilling on him. The Indian politician also takes from the white/purity syndrome. White kurta pyjama, Nehru jacket, Nehru topi (which has been co-opted by Anna/ Kejriwal). Nehru was such a master of iconography that his uniform has come to be the politician’s uniform. Even though it maybe a hollow symbol, like in the following example: A trend forecaster once mentioned his day in Vegas to me. He was passing through a casino. All the dealings in that casino were in paper or plastic. And yet, every time you won there was a ‘ding’ sound. It is a sound that has lingered from the days when actual coins were used in casinos. It is the metaphoric tail that the hominoid refuses to shed, even though it serves no function anymore other than that of the Pavlovian reflex — an evolutionary sense of delight at the clinking noise, which is now being generated in an electronic machine.

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Uniform dialectics We wear uniforms not to be equal but to create an ‘us’ and ‘them’, the professional and the civilian. Ad men, sailors, accountants all use the term layman — without acknowledging that often enough, they are the laymen that layman refers to. These uniforms are leveraged to signify that one is in service of a ‘higher purpose’ and therefore must not be questioned; they create distance.

This distance exists for the soldier who can kill and still not be murderer, because he is under orders in his uniform. The magistrate who volunteers nothing and yet judges all, in inscrutable black. The saint in orange, white or purple, depending on which god you believe in.

But these are symbols only of men who are compartmentalised in the social order. The women (because they have not mattered for a large chunk of history) descend or ascend in social mobility with ease, wearing the same thing, just differently.

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The sari complex The sari, therefore, is a conundrum because it is an excellent device in myth-making and an exception to its own rule. It’s a drape, not a shirt or a pant, and therefore can be adjusted to belong to the lady of the manor, or the street, or the transgender looking to identify as female. Only two values remain static to this garment: that it is Indian and that it is feminine.

Even the fishnet stocking or the clear heel has transitioned from being ‘stripper friendly’, to ‘edgy’ or pushing the envelope for many aesthetes. And as myths, at least in female clothing, become more ephemeral what does the myth maker do?

Anna Wintour in her severe Chanel suits, Lagerfeld in constant high collar, Picasso in his Breton stripes (and now Gaultier), Tom Ford, always in a B&W suit and always photographed from the left, Monroe in the iconic white, Jackie O in her pearls, even Kim K in constant pencil skirt and boob top — we make our own uniforms in the service of myth-making, a projection that may outlive us, much like Nehru.

S higorika Singhis a Delhi-based fashion journalist

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