Like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also has his own style of dressing. Though unlike Modi, Yogi has never donned suits or pants and shirts in the last 26 years, his saffron monk-style robes have become the latest craze in the fashion industry.
Like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also has his own style of dressing. Though unlike Modi, Yogi has never donned suits or pants and shirts in the last 26 years, his saffron monk-style robes have become the latest craze in the fashion industry.
If the PM’s kurta is called the Modi Kurta because of being designed by Modi himself, Yogi’s kurta is called “Nakhooni Saada Kurta”. The name sounds bizarre. The tailor who stitches his kurta keeps a little long nail on thumb. What do nails have to do with stitching his kurta?
Buddhiram, tailor and owner of Bharatiya Tailors, situated outside Gorakhnath temple complex in Gorakhpur explains: “Chote Maharaj (as Yogi is popularly known in his hometown) likes rounded embroidered stitching also known as piped stitching. For this the tailor requires nails so that he can press while creating a piped or embroidered look stitching,” says Buddhiram.
The first time Adityanath visited this tailoring shop in 1993, he had taken to sanyaas and joined the Gorakhnath temple and math to become a disciple of the Late Mahant Avaidhnath. Soon after taking to sanyaas, Mahanat Avaidhnath had directed Mahant Mahendra Nath to take Adityanath to Buddhiram’s tailoring shop for the saffron sets of clothes he was to don.
“When he came for the first time and gave his measurement, he himself had created that simple but unique design which gives the kurta a natural and comfortable but a different and unique look. We were amazed at his creativity,” recalls the owner.
The tailor claims that over the next two to three visits, Yogi would alter his own the design and creation a little bit. Finally, after a year or so he stopped coming, but four sets of his kurtas would be stitched every three months and sent to him at the temple.
Yogi likes kurtas with round neck and without collars. The width of his sleeves is usually double the size of ordinary kurtas. Another tailor in Buddhiram’s shop says that he prefers this to let air pass through all the time to cool his body. In summers, he will wear half sleeves while in winters he wears full size kurtas with tight-fitting width of his sleeves to check air.
“As a principle and devotee of Gorakhnath temple, we never bill stitching charges for kurtas and other clothes of saints serving math and temple. Instead, we seek their blessings for the growth of our business” claims Buddhiram. The cloth for his kurtas is usually bought from the Gandhi Ashram in bulk and kept in Buddhiram’s shop. “Whenever the stitching demands come from the temple, we use the same cloth to meet their demands,” he adds.
The UP Chief Minister wore cotton kurtas in the early years, but after joining the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1998 as the youngest parliamentarian, matka silk replaced cotton as the new fabric for his kurtas. This fabric is brought from Kashmir, Karnataka and West Bengal. The uniqueness of matka silk is that it doesn’t get warm in summers but remains warm in winters. The matka silk fabric which Adityanath chooses to wear cost Rs 1500 a metre. It ranges between Rs 600 to Rs 2500 depending upon its quality.
Matka silk usually comes in cream colour. It is dyed in saffron colour locally in Gorakhpur and then sent to the shop for making the CM's Kurtas. Thus, his kurta is not that cheap as one makes out to be. It requires 2.5 metres of cloth to stitch his kurta and it cost no less than Rs 3500 a piece with stitching charges not included.
Adityanath always dons a 22-inch dupatta around his neck. He also wears a special turban which is also made at Buddhiram’s shop.
What is matka silk?
Matka silk is an Indian term for rough handloom silk fabric. It is made from very thick yarns spun out of pierced cocoon in the weft and organised in warp. The yarns of matka silk is usually obtained from short ends of silk from mulberry silkworms and spun by hand without removing the gum, which is called sericin. Cocoons required to produce matka silk are mainly obtained from Karnataka but spinning is mostly done in the villages of Malda and Mushirdabad districts of West Bengal. Mainly spun by hand, since filaments of the cocoons of this silk from Bihar were originally unwound and plied together on the mud pot (Matka), the fabric made from it is called matka silk.
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