Sisterhood of the coverall dress

Rehana Sayyed, 31, yanks three year-old Rafiul’s hand as he picks up his toy truck to play. The Gurgaon housewife is hassled — the school-bus driver has already called. Satchel and water bottle on shoulder, she absent-mindedly flings a dupatta on herself, locks the door, grabs him, and runs for the lift.

In Karnataka’s Malenaad region, it’s the betel-nut season. Like most women in her neighbourhood, Ratna Gowda, 32, has finished her household chores and packed her lunch. She hitches her gown into her petticoat and rushes to work in the betel-nut orchard where she will toil for the day, sorting out small, medium and large nuts.

It’s 7am and the Veer Savarkar Udyan in Borivali West is already milling with morning walkers. Two reluctant rounds later, neighbours Jaya Barot, 62, and Arati Shah, 54, have other things on their mind. Barot wants to discuss her bahu’s shopping sprees while her friend wants updates on their favourite tele-soap Bade Achchey Lagte Hain which she missed while on a week-long pilgrimage. They gather their gowns and settle on bench for a chat.

In Vesave fishing village off Andheri’s Versova, crows and herons flock around the fishing boats being unloaded. Sandhya Bhoir, 41, pulls out a neatly-rolled tobacco-laden paan from the front pocket of her gown, tucks it in her mouth, and squats on the beach where her husband and brother-in-law have unloaded their catch to sort the fish.

The one thing that unites these vignettes is the humble gown or maxi-dress, to which the staple Bharatiya-naari wardrobe of saris and salwar-kameezes is losing its battle as home-wear.

Convenience is key
“Atloo badhu comfortable chhe (it is so comfortable),” says Borivali resident Barot, who, like her friend, wears her gown over a petticoat, with a full-sleeved sweater, one-toed socks and chappals. “The kids have asked me to switch to those bulky sports shoes but I’ve refused,” she grins and goes on to explain how she only drapes saris if she is out visiting someone or going to a function. “It becomes too unwieldy for my age — with my walking stick, managing the pallu and pleats mean I often need help. I switched to gowns four years ago after I was ill for a month.”

Barot’s friend and neighbour Shah took a while to adjust to what she endearingly calls ‘the mexi’. “I grew up in Rajkot at a time when even the salwar kameez was frowned upon. Now there too, women come to the neighbourhood grocers’ like this. After my initial shyness, now I often wonder why I can’t go everywhere wearing one.”

Nearly 1,400km away in Gurgaon, housewife Rehana Sayyed couldn’t agree more with Barot and Shah. “With two kids and no domestic help, it is a pain to change every time I step out. I usually just throw a dupatta or shawl over my head just in case I meet any elders, and go till the local shop nearby,” she says. “Once, the school bus broke down 2km outside the colony. Instead of letting our children wait in the bus, some of us decided to fetch them in an auto. That’s the farthest I have gone in my gown.”

Around summer in 2011, the convenience of the maxi dress helped it evolve from just a nightgown to a chic-yet-casual summer dress. But while those uber-fashionable summer dresses have a short shelf life, the nightgown is timeless.

Designer Nikhat Mariyam Neerushaa, who’s been designing for TV shows for over a decade, explains the universal appeal of this colonial hand-down in its convenience. “European women wore negligees over which they would throw on a home gown if they had to rush out of the bedroom for something. Instead of getting into such an elaborate fuss, Indian women began going in for a single body-length outfit. The Anglo-Indian and Catholic communities helped take it to places like BDD chawls where the outfit caught on. From lacy gowns, to ones with batik and even bandhini work, women today are spoilt for choice when they go to buy a nightgown.” Neerushaa feels that ‘love handles’ and ‘spare tyres’ are driving the change. “Unlike saris where the mid-riff is exposed, or the salwar kameez which emphasises the body shape because it is fitted, the maxi gown falls straight and effectively camouflages what you want it to.”

‘It reinforces stereotypes’
But Laxmi Lingam from the Women’ Studies Centre at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences believes that this covering up only highlights negative stereotypes about women’s bodies. “It reinforces to women that if they don’t have an hour-glass figure they are supposed to hide this under a coverall garment, making them look like floating unshaped masses in hideous designs.” She points out how, unlike other “convenient” outfits like jeans or shorts, this gown has not run into trouble with patriarchal satraps across religions. “The fact that it covers the woman sack-like seems to have met their approval. Yet some women feel constrained to wear a dupatta to cover themselves further,” she points out.

Aside from the fashion and politics of the garment, Kandivali resident Rupenbhai Shah gets it right when he tell us: “Jo bikta hai woh dikhta hai (What sells, shows).” Jokingly called ‘maxi king’ by the readymade garment trade circles in Mumbai, this 49-year-old sources his gowns from Ulhasnagar, Thane, Dharavi and the Behrampada slums in Bandra. “Earlier we used to trade in salwar kameezes too, but the trend keeps changing and there’s a greater chance we will lose money in keeping up. So 10 years back, my family decided to sell only gowns and we have never regretted this decision as they simply do not go out of fashion,” says the portly businessman as he meets us in his claustrophobic-kitschy Kalbadevi office. His phone almost never stops ringing. “We’ve been surprised by the demand from smaller towns like Nagpur, Pune, Jalgaon, Solapur and Kolhapur, and recently set up an office in Pune.” When asked about his rumoured turnover in crores, he simply points to the shrine in his office, folds his hands and cuts us off. “We do not talk about these things.”

Maybe he’s the only one who actually gets the meaning of why the garment is called the ‘maxi’.