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Indian Textile Heritage

A History of Indian Tailoring.

From the Mughal courts to the post-independence bespoke tradition — the history of Indian tailored dress.

Indian tailoring has a history as long and as rich as the subcontinent's textile tradition. The achkan and the sherwani derive from the Mughal court workshops of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where master craftsmen developed garment traditions that have survived in their essentials to the present day. The western suit tailoring tradition came to India through the British Raj and was adopted, adapted, and mastered by Indian tailors who eventually rivalled — and in many clients' estimation surpassed — the quality of their British sources. The Black Lapel by Hongkong Custom Tailors is itself part of this history: founded on a Hong Kong cutting tradition in 1963, it represents the meeting of two great non-European tailoring traditions in one establishment in Adyar.

Photograph to follow

The Mughal court and the origins of Indian tailoring

The Mughal court of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries was one of the greatest patrons of textile and garment arts in world history. The Emperor Akbar alone maintained workshops (karkhanas) that employed thousands of artisans, including tailors who produced garments of extraordinary complexity and quality — angarkhas, jamas, sherwanis and achkans whose basic forms are still recognisable in Indian ethnic dress today. The embroidery traditions associated with Indian ethnic wear — zardozi, resham work, chikankari — were refined and codified in these court workshops and have been passed down through continuous craft lineages to the present day.

The stand collar of the bandhgala and the sherwani — one of the most distinctive elements of Indian formal menswear — derives from the Mughal nobility's adoption of Persian court dress, where the closed collar was associated with rank and refinement. When the British arrived and the court culture changed, the collar and the general silhouette of the long coat survived because they had become deeply embedded in Indian cultural identity.

The British Raj and the Western suit in India

The British Raj introduced Western suit tailoring to India in a systematic way. Indian tailors who served the British civil and military administration learned Western cutting and construction, and some of these tailors — particularly in Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta — developed skills that rivalled those of London tailors. By the early twentieth century, Indian-trained tailors were producing Western suits of significant quality for Indian clients who wanted to dress in the Western professional tradition while retaining the option of Indian dress for ceremonial and domestic occasions.

The partition of India in 1947 brought master cutters from different traditions together in new cities — Lahore's tailoring community moved to Delhi; Hong Kong's Chinese and Western-trained tailors expanded their diaspora across South and Southeast Asia. The Black Lapel by Hongkong Custom Tailors was founded in this tradition, bringing the Hong Kong cutting lineage — which combined Savile Row training with Chinese precision and efficiency — to Adyar, Chennai, in 1963. This tradition has been maintained and developed over sixty years to produce the bespoke work we do today.

Commission your ethnic wear.

Sherwanis, bandhgalas, kurtas and more — made bespoke at 4 Sardar Patel Road, Adyar, Chennai. Mon–Sat, 11am–9pm. First consultation free.

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