Clothing and Appearance in Mughal South Asia

From the Mughal conquest of northern India in 1526 to the end of imperial rule in 1857, clothing combined tailored coats, wrapped fabric and regional textile traditions. The late-sixteenth-century Ain-i Akbari describes Akbar’s court wardrobe in unusual detail, while surviving garments and portraits preserve particular examples of cut, fastening and ornament.

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Coats, trousers and wrapped cloth

The jama was a fitted coat with a flared skirt, secured at the side; a sash or patka could wrap around the waist. Abu’l Fazl says Akbar ordered the takauchiyah to have a round skirt tied on the right, replacing an earlier slit skirt tied left. An open-fronted peshwaz fastened at the front. The Ain also describes lined and padded coats and shalwar trousers whose hem held a drawstring. These were not simply names for one standard outfit: cut, lining and fastening changed how a garment sat and how it could be worn in different weather.

The same account describes a rain-resistant chakman made from broadcloth, wool or wax-treated cloth, and a longer, more heavily padded gadar that served in Hindustan in place of a fur coat. Such descriptions connect clothing to climate and use. A seventeenth-century cotton jama in the Metropolitan Museum, attributed to the Deccan, has long sleeves that would be gathered up on the arm and a right-side fastening; a portrait of Shah Jahan shows a similar coat with tight trousers and a sash carrying a dagger.

Cloth, seasons and regional production

Akbar’s wardrobe distinguished garments by material and finish. The Ain lists woollen and waxed coats, silk stitching, cotton wadding, and different amounts of lining and border. Kashmir shawls were worn folded in an older style before Akbar popularized wearing them doubled over the shoulders. Abu’l Fazl reports more than a thousand shawl workshops at Lahore, where a wool-and-silk blend called māyān was woven for turbans and waistbands as well as shawls.

A court hunting coat from the first half of the seventeenth century shows what skilled embroidery could add to a garment: fine chain stitch covers white satin with cats, deer, rabbits, birds, insects, flowering trees and landscape. The Victoria and Albert Museum associates this embroidery with Gujarati artisans who made garments and hangings for Mughal patrons and export. Its decoration turns a practical coat into a dense, carefully worked display, while its regional manufacture links court dress to the western Indian coast. A miniature in the Akbarnama manuscript (IS.2:3-1896), painted in 1595–1605, shows an oarsman in a coarsely tied waistcloth beside Akbar in a finely pleated lower wrap. Their different fabrics and ways of tying the cloth make rank visible within one scene.

Wardrobes, gifts and distinction

The imperial wardrobe handled cloth as a managed store. Clerks arranged garments by entry date, colour, price and weight, then attached a cloth label describing an item’s grade. The account says the wardrobe prepared a thousand suits each season and kept another 120 ready in bundles. These figures describe an imperial institution, where keeping sizes and values legible mattered for later issue, presentation or gift.

Khilats, or robes of honour, rewarded service and made a relationship between ruler and recipient visible. Cloth and accessories could be included in a grant. In court portraits, the fit of a coat, decorated sash, jeweled turban and chosen stones also communicated rank. Surviving objects make these details tangible: a V&A gold thumb ring dated 1600–50 holds emeralds and rubies, while a jade pendant from about 1610–20 combines a carved stone with gold settings.

Head coverings and personal appearance

Gulbadan Begum’s memoir recounts a family meeting in Agra after Humayun’s defeat at Chausa in 1539. He said he had not recognized her at first: when he left with the army for Gaur in 1537, she wore a high cap, while at their reunion she wore a muslin coif called a lachak. The translator describes the lachak as a kerchief folded crosswise and tied beneath the chin.

Footwear also formed part of court dress. A British Museum image of Shah Jahan, dated about 1650, shows gold-embroidered velvet slippers with curling toes; when the emperor travelled, a kafsh-bardar, or keeper of shoes, guarded his footwear. The museum’s dated objects place such details alongside the clothes and ornaments recorded in the Ain.

At court, tailoring, textile finish and personal ornaments made dress both useful and legible as a sign of rank. Akbar’s wardrobe records and later objects show how those choices varied by season, region and patron.