Punjabi ghagra traditions: cloth, layering and records

Gathered cloth and layering

In her account of Punjabi dress, Jasvinder Kaur distinguishes the ghagra from the English sense of a petticoat as an undergarment. She describes a gathered skirt worn over trousers. The cloth could range from fine malmal to khaddar, drawn together with a traditional waist string. Her recollection of stories about starch and crushed mica belongs to the remembered preparation of particular skirts. She also names harishal among the materials and gives cloth lengths ranging from nine to twenty-five yards, depending on the fabric. These proportions concern cloth gathered into the skirt, rather than the height of a garment on the body.[1]

Two district accounts

P. J. Fagan’s 1900 Montgomery gazetteer uses lahinga and ghagra as local names for skirts, distinguishing town and village usage. Fagan also contrasts the finer material of some lahinga with the cloth used for ghagra. It describes red or blue cloth, sometimes tied during dyeing so that parts remain uncoloured. The same passage places the skirt with a bodice, a possible kurti and an upper covering. Its vocabulary shows how a district writer separated garments, materials and ways of wearing them. The description does not establish a pattern for the entire region, but it preserves specific terms and surface treatments within one dated account.[2]

The 1926 Multan gazetteer gives a different arrangement: women’s lower garments include trousers or a skirt, accompanied by a short or longer upper garment and a covering over the head. The comparison keeps local alternatives visible.[3]

Retained skirts

Aparna Banerji’s 2019 report describes soof-da-ghagra skirts at Khalsa Virasat Museum near Lambra. They appear among family textiles preserved with phulkaris and rugs from different parts of Punjab. Their presence documents collecting and retention, rather than a complete maker history for each skirt.[4]