With ruffles falling like an inverted bouquet, the white garment swung on the hanger. The creation was in “fine cotton mulmul fabric” as ordered by the Italian fashion-buyer. The garment would soon leave the studio to be sold at a high-end fashion boutique in Italy, perhaps with the tag ‘milkman-dress’ but with no information on its origin or context.

Two decades ago, I worked at a design studio in Ahmedabad that developed fabrics and clothing for niche international clients interested in the exotic. The studio’s work was carried out in great secrecy, the designs kept close to the chest and the surplus clothing shredded or burnt. One order asked for a replica of the dress worn by Rabaris and Ahirs, the traditional camel and cow herders of the Kutch. This was called “the milkman’s dress”. A decade later, I undertook field research in the region to understand this attire. I travelled extensively in Kutch, worked with local craft and education initiatives and made friends with Rabaris and Ahirs. What I found was a close connection between fabric, clothing and culture in these traditional communities—connections that are being lost as those ways of life vanish.

Rabaris are pastoral nomads who believe they have a divine calling to shepherd the camel. They migrate seasonally to find pasture for their herds. The Rabaris mostly live in the semi-arid desert of Rajasthan and Gujarat and it is believed that the Rabaris in Kutch migrated from Sindh in the fourteenth century. They enjoyed the patronage of the ruling Jadeja Rajputs, providing the Maharao with camels for his army. The cultural and political relevance of the camel diminished with the arrival of the railways, followed by Partition in 1947 and the subsequent fall in royal fortunes. Today, only a handful of Rabaris herd camels; most subsist by driving sheep, goats or water buffaloes. Ahirs, the other major community, are devotees of the divine cowherd Krishna. They are believed to have migrated from Mathura in North India, along with Krishna, to Saurashtra and Kutch. Some still herd cows for a living, but many have become truck drivers and farmers.

Both communities were affected by Operation Flood, the 1970 programme that made India the world’s top milk producer. The Rabaris and Ahirs migrated to urban centres such as Ahmedabad and Vadodara to make a better living selling milk. At that time, Rabari and Ahir men still wore a full-sleeved upper garment called the ‘kediyun’.

The white garment is cut in a dramatic and elaborate way, with an overlap bodice that is joined with a gathered panel at the upper waist, and then opens up as ruffles at the hem. For the Gujarati city dweller, the kediyun became the milkman’s dress.

Kediyun is as much garment as identity. The variations in style can tell if the wearer is a Rabari or an Ahir. Even the sub-groups can be distinguished based on design. The Rabari sub-groups are Kutchis, Dhebarias and Vagadias. Dhebarias live mostly in Anjar, a taluka in Kutch, and Vagadias derive their name from Vagad (translated as ‘wind’ and ‘stone’) in eastern Kutch. Like Kutchis, they are further subdivided into two groups: Nani-Vagad and Moti-Vagad. The Ahirs are divided into Paratharia, Machhoya, Boricha and Sorathia. It is not one element that distinguishes the wearer but a number of elements together, such as the length of the kediyun, the depth of the armhole, the shape of the overlap, the style of the pocket and even the details of the stitch.

The kediyun is a product of heritage-craft, a culmination of generations of knowledge and skill. Until a few decades ago, the kediyun was made only by women from the same community as those who wore it. Today the kediyun is made by tailors as well as fashion designers who often take inspiration from traditional garments such as the kediyun but fail to address their cultural context, relation to the local environment, or spiritual and emotional significance. Even the fact that the garment is inherently sustainable is lost on those who appropriate it.

NOMADISM MADE THE Rabari lifestyle self-sufficient. As Harkuben Rabari, a senior artisan in the village of Tunda-Vandh, told me, “Where would one find a tailor in the jungle?” But while almost all the women could sew a garment, only a few could cut to fit the body. According to Jamnaben Ahir, an artisan in Padhar village, only four out of hundred women in her mother’s generation could cut the kediyun. Today, Jamnaben is the only woman in a regional population of 20,000 who can both stitch and cut the kediyun. The number of those who wear a handmade kediyun has declined; a few elders still approach Jamnaben to get their kediyuns repaired. And occasionally, she makes kediya for family members.

In recent decades, wearing the kediyun on a daily basis has been discouraged, even stigmatised, especially after the 2001 earthquake.

Redevelopment and economic policies introduced in its aftermath caused profound changes in the environmental and cultural landscape. Tax incentives brought industries to the region, including two of Asia’s largest thermal plants, fracturing the local lifestyle. New temporary settlements came up to house primarily male migrant workers from distant states. The influx of these men, who had little understanding of local culture, forced Rabari women to start wearing t-shirts under their backless cholis. According to Rabari men I spoke to, when they started working for the new industries, they were told by the management that the kediyun was not practical and they should wear a “pant and shirt”. Sometimes men would leave their homes wearing the kediyun and change into shirts and trousers when they arrived at their workplace. Eventually the men gave up daily wear of the kediyun. In urban centres, too, only the older generation wears the kediyun daily. For most men in Kutch, the kediyun is worn only for rituals.

Kediyun for weddings were adorned with embroidery in traditional styles that were distinct to communities, as was the cut of the garment. According to one Rabari custom, the kediyun worn by the groom should be made by the first female cousin. That custom has changed too. One Rabari woman told me that she used to stitch all her family’s clothes—juldi, kediyun, ghaghari—but her daughter in-law does not know how to stitch a basic skirt. Meanwhile, machine-made kediya from Ahmedabad are available at local shops.

But these readymades cannot replicate handmade details. For instance, the kediyun of the Machhoya Ahirs must have a cheen stitch, according to Jamnaben Ahir. This stitch is a variation of the feather stitch that holds the pleats of the chaar (the panel attached to the waist of the kediyun) together, and cannot be done on a sewing machine. The gathered panel, once prepared, is stitched with the bodice.

Nor are the readymade versions sustainable in the way the traditional ones are. Part of the maker’s skill is to cut the pattern in a way that wastes almost no fabric. It can also be adapted according to the selvedge and width of the fabric and to the maker’s experience and skill. The width is critical to the cutting of the dress: the traditional making of the kediyun accounted for the small width of handloom, achieving zero wastage.

Traditionally, kediya were made with handspun and hand-woven cotton. Later, a handloom plain weave locally known as “doubling” became popular. Since the 1980s, twill-weave mill cotton has been popular due to its affordability and strength. Around this time, some Rabari men travelled to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries as contract labourers. They brought back mercerised and other varieties of cotton. The women adapted to the different widths of these fabrics too, without wastage.

That adaptability extended to new technologies of measurement. The traditional unit of measurement used by the Rabari and Ahir women is based on body parts—unglee is finger-width, tasu is handspan and val is the distance from shoulder to thumb when the arm is stretched out. When mill cloth first become popular in the markets, the women were initially confused by the metric system that it brought. Eventually, they integrated it into their heritage measurement system: a metre length is derived by stretching the fabric from the nose to the thumb. The various measurements of the garment, such as sleeve and shoulder length, are directly measured along the body. This is fundamentally different from the use of a tape measure: When cloth is measured against the body, the drape and fall of the fabric are accounted for.

The skill of making the kediyun is tacit knowledge passed from one generation of women to another. But the process is also individual and personal because the body of the maker is used as a tool; it becomes part of the making. The maker sits on the floor and sews the fabric with her hands. The measures of finger-widths, handspans and arm-lengths vary from person to person. The foot is employed to hold the fabric, the big toe and the thigh are used to secure the thread and cloth. The palms twist the thread to make a double-ply. Thus, each kediyun has a direct relationship with the individual maker.

Culture is embedded in the dress too. The women believe it is important to have good thoughts while sewing, as thoughts may be stitched into the fabric. Sewing does not take place on certain days in honour of Shitala mata, an ancient deity associated with curing smallpox. Local custom bars activities that involve creating a knot on those days, which also means hair is not combed on that day. Women believed the goddess could get knotted into the stitch, increasing the risk of a child in the house getting smallpox.

Folk songs about the kediyun are popular. The Kutchi language has no script, which makes oral traditions especially important, and songs are adapted, re-told, personalised and shared among sub-groups. A song exclusive to Machhoya Ahirs goes:

“Let go of the chaar of my kediyun, else the kediyun will tear apart, the tie-up will break. One by one, with the needle I stitched the mirror on the kediyun; in the mirror, I saw the reflection of Lord Krishna’s face. I hemmed the chaar of the kediyun, stitched the shoulder, and attached the tie-ups. For the ‘cheen’ I used red- and yellow-coloured thread. With a diagonal movement of the needle I stitched the kediyun.”

In the song, the kediyun is the object connecting god and devotee. The devotee holds on to Lord Krishna’s kediyun to prevent him from leaving as he prepares to migrate from Mathura to Kutch. Krishna exclaims that the kediyun will tear if the devotee does not let go. The Ahir woman replies that she embellished the kediyun with mirrors, and saw Krishna’s reflection. She elaborates on the colour of the thread and the movement of the needle, suggesting that the making of the kediyun is akin to devotion to the Lord. Similarly, another Rabari devotional song details the type of hand stitch: “O Ram, let me worship you... Let me wear the kediyun with backstitch.”

The kediyun connects families too. A ritual song sung at weddings called ‘Phatanu’ seems to mock the in-laws.

“The groom’s father doesn’t know how to wear the kediyun. Bring the groom’s grandfather’s brother, he can teach him to wear it,” the song begins. It goes on, “The groom’s father doesn’t know how to wash the kediyun. Bring the groom’s father’s mother, she can teach him to wash it.”

In the song, the kediyun is the agent that introduces two families, easing the stress of elaborate wedding ceremonies with comedy.

A wedding is where you are most likely to see the kediyun today. The lifestyle of the Kutch communities is changing; most Rabaris don’t own a camel anymore. The kediyun, which was worn once even by the Patel, Vankar, Meghval and other communities in the Kutch, is no longer daily wear for second-generation communities in urban centres, or even for young people in villages. And while imitations of the dress are made by local tailors and Indian fashion designers, these replicas do not capture the material culture and sustainability embodied in the original. The milkman in his kediyun is rarely seen.