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#SareeTwitter trivia- 19th century women wore no blouse with saree. To keep up with victorian sense of propriety, the wife of a civil servant in colonial India, Jnanadanandini Debi designed what we now wear as a blouse under sarees
More #SareeTwitter trivia- sarees were not worn with front pleats. The maharani of Cooch Behar (in Bengal) started wearing front pleats that allowed mobility over the common wrapped around saree
Even now certain communities do not use front pleats and simply wrap around the saree differently that allows women to go around doing their chores
Trivia Pallu #sareetwitter - while Parsi women wore the pallu over the right shoulder, Jnanadanandini Debi adapted it to drape over the left shoulder - this left the right hand free for extending courtesies at social gatherings
#SareeTwitter Trivia- When you wear a saree-blouse, say a little thank you to the women who made it possible. After World War I when women started entering workplaces in Europe, the front buttoned blouse was high neck full sleeve torso covering. V neck was considered indecent.
PS: Read blouse tweets in the context of #SareeTwitter. Not saying women were bare breasted but used some form of unstitched cloth to cover up- be it saree pallu, odhni, choli (it was just a rectangular cloth initially) or kanchuki. Saree pallu was repurposed to cover up breasts
As pointed out by some, in regions like Kerala wearing a stitched piece of cloth like a blouse was considered inauspicious even after saree blouses came into the picture. So let this not offend your sense of decency that some of our ancestors wore no blouse with saree. The End.
