dior in india by Sascha Jansma

A Reflection on India's Influence on Fashion and Material Culture

The documentary India’s Hidden Influence on European Fashion reveals a vital but often overlooked story: India’s deep and transformative impact on global textiles, fashion, and material culture. Over the past weeks, we have explored how colonialism, global trade, and cultural exchange shaped the material histories of both Europe and India. This film powerfully illustrated how Indian craftsmanship, fabrics, and designs fundamentally changed European taste from the 17th century onwards — a reality that continues to inspire fashion today.

From the 1600s, Indian textiles such as Chintz, Muslin, and Silk were not just commodities; they were desired luxuries that redefined European ideas of beauty, refinement, and status. Chintz, for instance — vivid, colourfast cottons printed with intricate floral designs — captivated the European market so completely that governments in France and Britain banned its import in an attempt to protect local industries. However, demand remained insatiable, highlighting how deeply India’s textile artistry had permeated European life. This echoes our discussions on transatlantic trade, where not only people and goods were exchanged, but tastes, aesthetics, and economic structures were radically transformed.

The documentary also addressed colonialism’s complex legacy. Under British rule, India’s thriving textile industry was systematically deconstructed. British industrialists learned from Indian techniques but mechanized them, undercutting Indian artisans and redirecting global profits to Europe. We had studied how colonial economic systems were not just extractive in terms of raw materials (like cotton) but also in terms of cultural capital — exploiting indigenous expertise while denying its origins. As shown in the film, garments such as European printed cotton dresses owe their very existence to Indian knowledge systems, even as India itself was marginalized.

An important insight from the film was how material culture records hidden histories. European aristocrats’ wardrobes, decorated homes, and imported goods became silent witnesses to India’s invisible presence in their daily lives. In our classes, we talked about how fashion is not merely decorative — it is political, economic, and social. A French robe à la française made of "Indian-style" printed cotton tells a story of globalization, exploitation, aspiration, and cross-cultural admiration, all woven into its threads.

Today’s global fashion industry still imitates these patterns. The mass production of textiles, the racialized labor hierarchies, and the “exoticization” of non-European cultures are not new phenomena — they are direct continuations of colonial and trade histories that started centuries ago. As contemporary designers and brands increasingly seek to “celebrate” Indian handcraft, it becomes crucial to question whether they are genuinely empowering Indian artisans or merely appropriating aesthetics for profit.

Moreover, watching the documentary made me think about India’s internal transformations. As British policies gutted local industries, Indian consumers themselves began adapting Western styles, leading to hybrid fashions. Movements like Swadeshilater pushed for the revival of handwoven cloth (khadi) as a symbol of independence and national pride. This reflected how textiles could be reclaimed as a tool of resistance as well as domination — another key theme from our semester's studies.

External research, such as Giorgio Riello’s Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (2013), supports this broader view, showing how the textile trade intertwined with the very foundations of capitalism and empire. Similarly, the V&A’s exhibition The Fabric of India (2015) highlighted how India’s textile traditions were technologically sophisticated and globally influential long before European industrialization. These sources emphasize that material culture is not a passive backdrop to history — it is an active agent of social, political, and economic change.

In conclusion, the documentary beautifully tied together many themes we discussed this semester: the power of textiles to shape global history, the intertwined fates of colonizer and colonized, and the way fashion serves as both a canvas for beauty and a battleground for power. It reinforced for me the importance of questioning how everyday materials carry hidden legacies — and how history is literally woven into the fabrics we wear.

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