The Journey of Kid’s clothing in India

Kid’s clothing in India
· Introduction

Kid’s clothing has one f the fastest upcoming sectors in the fashion and clothing industry. Though the industry is not as old as the other garment producing sectors it has achieved no less than the other sectors. In fact more and more brands are venturing into kid’s garments as there is a lot of potential that the sector holds. We have tried to trace down the journey o f emergence of what we see today as kids clothing in India. The document will provide a brief history of kid’s wear in India and the major factors that changed the course of the journey time and again and the effects; apparent and non apparent that it had on the industry and culture as a whole.

o The “doll” look
A major influence that we still see in kid’s clothing and specially the little girl’s dresses is the “DOLL”. Most of us and the generations preceding us have had ‘the cute looking short, frilly, lacy frocks’ in our wardrobes in a particular age. Wonder how all over the world and India, even in the smallest towns of India people had a common sensibility towards kid’s clothing! But if thought about it as a parent, the reason becomes clearer.
Every girl in her childhood whether liked it or not had dolls as a part of their toys. That is also the first gift that we think of for a little girl. The doll was considered the perfect form of a cute little girl, adored by all, always dressed and made up. And this immense appreciation of the “DOLL” look had a great impact on the way kid’s clothing emerged. As we also spoke to a few parents, we did not miss out their use of the term s “Doll like” and “cute”. This was one common factor that governed the simultaneous emergence of Frocks.


Photographs showing kids wearing pretty frocks, with style elements like gathers,frills,laces adding to the doll look.

The photograph on the bottom left shows brother and sister wearing frocks. Frocks being one of the most popular and convenient clothing for the kids is often used for both girl and boy babies and also have a tradition to be passed on from the older kids to the younger ones in all homes. There has been a tradition of reusing fabrics to construct kids garments. It is interesting that even the garmenst are reused to the maximum possibility for the younger generation/siblings. Not only frocks but even other kids clothing is passed on to the younger ones.


· History (1930s-2000):

· Regional clothing and their origin: Kid’s Clothing, just like other developments started at regional level at not exactly the same time in history. But the approximate time when garments were consciously being made for kids was in the 1930’s. Much before that the only garments that were sewn for the kids in the rural sector were the undergarments (Langotis as said in colloquial terms). This was a triangular piece of fabric with tie ups at all the corners to tie it around the child’s waist. As the kid grew after a certain age he/she started wearing a miniature version of the adult’s clothes. But all that was stitched was hand stitched as the sewing machines had yet not arrived in the Indian homes, and specially the rural ones. As kids grew up the wore what the eldders did.

The picture on the top left shows kids from Rajasthan wearing traditional clothes and jewellery. On the right is a family picture from rural Tamilnadu. The boy wears exactly the same clothes the father but the girls wear blouse and loose fitting skirt as they grow older. The picture very well portrays how the tradition and culture influence the kids clothing, though the prints and fabrics are contemporary.
· Started with no specific garments for the kids : An important phase in the journey was when the idea of kid’s clothing as a completely separate range was not developed. This was when different forms of traditional regional wear were being converted into miniature versions. What is also interesting is that the same trend reentered the market a few years back when a lot of manufacturers made Salwar kamiz and Gahghra choli (skirt blouse traditionally worn in parts of west India and south India) for the kids.

· Minimalistic clothing (hand stitched): Another aspect of manufacturing of kid’s clothing was The advent of sewing machines in India. During the British era a couple of brands of sewing machines like Puff and Bhutia, existed in India. But since these machines were too expensive for the rural India which constituted the most of India. Slowly the urge for stylization had begun amongst the women who stitched their children’s clothes by hand. They introduced varied necklines and sleeves to the basic garment. By 1950s they even started using elements like gathering and piping in kid’s garments. Elastic was one of the most popular accessories started with just gathering in sleeves and later elastic and gathering were explored beyond limits.

· Occasional wear (traditional and a smaller version of elder’s garments, embellished): Even as all these innovations were happening the occasional wear for children, which was mostly festive continued to remain traditional. These were moreover smaller versions of the adult’s traditional garments. Just like the present day even in the past years different parts and communities of India followed a different dress code and so did the children during the festivals.

· Tailored garments: after 1948 people started getting sewing , machines at home and sewing remained a part of women’s household activities for quite a long time. As people’s lives started getting busier with women working in offices, the tailors gained popularity even amongst the middle class. Though earlier well stitched tailored garments were affordable to only the upper class and were a normal practice to get clothes stitched by tailors. In those days tailors used to go to these people’s houses to take the measurement and fabrics. Since the amount of effort and time that went into stitching kid’s garment was the same as that required for adults and some times even more complex but they were paid even less than what they were paid for adults garments. The tailors usually got inspired from movies and other foreign and Indian pattern making books and magazines for the designs. Sometimes even the parents used to suggest what they want the garment to look like. also the economically upper class of the society influenced the lower classes in terms of designs. They aspired to get their children the best clothes that they saw around. But with passing years the trend has completely changed. These days hardly any skilled tailors are ready to sew garments for kids. The ready to wear industry in a way also solved the problem as it is cheaper and has a wide range of garments as compared to the tailor made garments.

· Ready to wear (Indian, imported): ready to wear garments entered India during the British invasion. But at this time they were too expensive for even the richer group to afford. By 1960s India had its own textile mills and garment manufacturing units and a lot of ready to wear for kids started from then onwards and has now led to huge export houses that work for the foreign brands as well.


· Brands: with the advent of well known brands in India, the locally made garments are losing popularity. These brands provide a large variety of styles starting from sports wear to party wear to even traditional wear in all sizes. Another important shift from the woven to knitted fabrics has also changed the wardrobes of kids across the country. Most kid’s wardrobes are full of knitted garments whether summer wear or winter wear as it provides allowance for growing kids.

· Lifestyle: Along with garments these brands also manufacture a whole lot of lifestyle products which have extended the concept of lifestyle. Now the parents and children have different places to source their lifestyle products from. A lot of it is borrowed from the west and applied to the Indian context.


§ Kid’s garment producing sectors
India never had a history or concepts on children’s clothing. Most of the kids used to wear miniature of adult cloths. But with the time, India has adopted and carried forward western form of children’s wear along with their traditional dress. These changes majorly took place in India during 1960s. When many textile mills were set up in India and also the availability of sewing machines gave a push to these units who stitched clothes for kids at household level to public level.

1. Household:

House is the smallest unit in India which produces kids garment for their personal use.
· Raw materials are sourced from local markets or using the waste fabrics or old fabrics to make a new garment for a child. Recycling of old material plays a very important role here.
· Influencing factors on children’s clothing style:
Mainly all the designs are absorbed from cinema, plays, influential classes and also the dress available in the market.
· skills:
Skills were mainly developed with practice or learnt from their elders and later in this process, it was passed to them. During 60s-70s, new brands of machine were launched in the market and there were also many training centers set up by these companies so that they educate them about it. Schools also played an important role in providing classes on stitching lessons to students. These activities made the skill quite prominent in our country.
· Technology: this sector has always been there in country but it had not touched the creativity in the clothing for kids. But with the introduction of sewing machines and exposure to others ideas of kids clothing in other part of world made a vast change in the wardrobe of children in India rather then having only one and boring adult miniature style of garments.

2. Tailors

Tailors are another sector which also helped in the production of kids clothing.
· Raw material: they usually got the fabric from their clients; they also used their left out of the previous work to give an accent to the garment by doing piping and ruffles out of it.
· Design: they were told by their client or they had a catalogue for pattern making from which they used to construct garments for kids.
· Skill: self initiated, passed on skills, training centers, schools
· Issues related to tailors for non cooperating in the construction of kids wear
In 1950s onwards tailors slowly started to show their disinterest in accepting the order for kids wear. As they believe that they were paid less for their labor as they had to put same labor while constructing elder’s garments. This was the turning point when the kid’s garment manufacturing unit came in the picture in 60.
The top left picture shows the use of left over bits of fabric(chindis), where in the tailored frock is sold for Rs5.The picture on the right shows how today clothing has also become a part of the lifestyle making a style statement for kids. Just like the elders the kids are becoming brand conscious.

3. Technology:
Industrial revolution showed its peak during 1962 in India. At this time many mills and other factories were set up in various part of India. However the Tailor’s withdrawn attitude towards not stitching children’s garments gave the birth of kid’s garment industry in India. Kid’s garment manufacturers functioned in fragmented units for example a small scale industry, export houses etc. according to their convenient.
Kid’s Garment manufacturing units were very successful in generating job opportunity for people in India. But the most of the employee in this sector were females. The reason behind this was mainly because these units paid less salary in compare to other garment industries which produces adult garments.
Strategy set by these units
· outsourcing skill
· loaning equipments (sewing machine): they use to loan people in order to raise their production.


Influencing factors

The kid’s garment manufacturing units were highly influenced by following factors, which decided the type of garment to be produced in the market.

· Fashion (Indian/western):
The garment manufacturers always produced products which have the essence and taste of that particular time. This was also observed in these units through their particular way of style, detailing of clothes like sleeve, collars and silhouette, types of fabrics i.e printed or woven, following the color forecast of western countries, and also accessories used at that time.
The garments were also styled according to available accessories at that time. For example in 1930-1960s they had not much variety in the children’s wardrobe. For girls they had a-line frocks, gathered frocks with Peter pan color, puff sleeve etc. these frocks had also piping of contrast color to its base, which acted like an accent in the garment. Slowly from 70s different type’s garments for girls other then frocks were made and sold for example pants, top, skirts etc. were introduced. Laces and other accessories like belt, caps, and hair ribbons also became very popular and had become a part of children’s wardrobe.

· Culture/geographical condition
India is a multi cultural country where many religions co exist at same time and it is also geographically diverse as a country. Here the language of clothing varies from south to north India, west to east India. All these regions have their own way of expressing their own culture through clothing and they too have particular colour palette.
All these factors govern the decision of the manufacturers of that particular region. For example woolens clothing are produced at colder region and cotton clothes are more produced in south India because of its climatic condition. India still produces traditional dresses along with modern clothes for kids as the people here are very closely knitted to their culture. Therefore demand for such clothing becomes very high during festival and other ceremonial times, when people here like to dress up in their tradition attire along with other accessories. Color palette also changes from culture to culture; religion to religion for example Muslim people have more liking towards dark colors as they believe black color has power to ward off evil eye, Whereas Hindus prefer red and bright colors while they are buying clothes because these colors are more associated to their religious beliefs.

A study of the entire scenario of How Kid’s clothing has grown as concept and product in the last century explains the long journey and the various influencing factors amongst which the culture and religion, the geographical conditions, social and political and economical issues have played an important role.
It also gave us exposure to rich sources of information and material history in and around Ahmedabad which we were never aware of and amazed us to no limits.
References: Lucky Store, Kalupur, Ahmedabad
Images from google.com
Shakir Bhai; Apparel Design Department, NID
Conversation with family members (parents and grand parents)
Local tailors in Ahmedabad




History of Design
The Journey of Kid’s clothing in India
Giude: Mrs. Suchitra Seth

Submitted by: Jumpu Ronya, Kausar Rehman
3rd Sem, Textile Design, PGDPD
National Institute of Design
Date: 23.11.07