Luxury Indian Fashion

This unique ethnographic investigation examines the role that fashion plays in the production of the contemporary Indian luxury aesthetic. Tracking luxury Indian fashion from its production in village craft workshops via upmarket design studios to fashion soirées, Kuldova investigates the Indian luxury fashion market’s dependence on the production of thousands of artisans all over India, revealing a complex system of hierarchies and exploitation. In recent years, contemporary Indian design has dismissed the influence of the West and has focused on the opulent heritage luxury of the maharajas, Gulf monarchies and the Mughal Empire. Luxury Indian Fashion argues that the desire for a luxury aesthetic has become a significant force in the attempt to define contemporary Indian society. From the cultivation of erotic capital in businesswomen’s dress to a discussion of masculinity and muscular neo-royals to staged designer funerals, Luxury Indian Fashion analyzes the production, consumption and aesthetics of luxury and power in India. Neo-aristocratic haute couture pieces, exquisite needlework, revolvers, antique embroideries, whisky, art, delicate handloom textiles, cigars, opulent heritage spectacles and protein powders – these are among the fancies of India’s rich. Luxury Indian Fashion: A Social Critique turns to the world of New Delhi’s luxury fashion, exploring the material and ideological production of India’s aesthetics of power in an age dominated by fantasies of free markets, Indian moral exceptionalism and its future superpowerdom. Why have the elites recently dismissed Western luxury brands and instead indulge in opulent and maximalist heritage luxury inspired by Indian maharajas? Indian fashion designers also no longer run after recognition in the West, instead they cater to the wealthy Indians. What do such spectacular displays of Indianness reveal about current struggles over power, class, nation and morality? Neo-aristocratic Indian fashion is produced by thousands of impoverished artisans, but the creative ownership is claimed by few designers. Following the production of luxury pieces from village workshops, via elite design studios to fashion soirées, the author reveals the tensions and dependencies between the artisans, designers and elites. Kuldova argues that luxury fashion does not merely symbolize prestige of the elites, but literally embodies the power over labour power, the power to exploit. Indian luxury is proportionate to the pain that goes into its production. The Indian luxury fashion industry is instrumental for the (re)production of the actual neo-feudal social structures and hierarchical social order, and not only of its aesthetics.