Why are gulf arabs and indians the only cultures in the world to retain some semblance of their clothing cultures?Looking through old texts, paintings, early photos... They still dress the samefor the most part, even if some trends changed.Meanwhile the rest of the world has been overtaken by "modern" clothing. Dress pants, suits, nylon sportswear, shorts, etc.No matter what that culture originally wore, they're not wearing it now except for events or on certain celebrationsI wouldn't even call this a "Western" style of dress. Anglos of the past never dressed this way and it creeped in on them just the same.
>>18451883you mean why do their men wear dresses?
almost certainly due to desert climates and rich upper class creating a visual demonstration of class, and they're just more comfortable in the dry heat.
>>18452000I bet you like togas
>>18451883All ethnic traditional clothing is the same damn shit especially south and west asian clothing
>>18452024Egypt, Iraq, Syria, even Turkey are all areas that used to wear their own traditional clothing but have fully swapped to "modern wear" as I call it.India isn't a desert, and their wealthy wear suits and pants yet the vast majority of their population still wears Sari, Kurti, Dhoti(Yes I know the current PM wears a Jodhpuri to events, I'd say he's one of the few exceptions to the rich dressing "Westerly" as they think of it and likely does it to project national identity)>>18452278I sort of grouped south asia under "India" but really Afghan, Nepal, even Bhutan which all count under "South Asia" all generally changed too.
>>18451883The answer is government effort.
>>18451883oh look another shitskin pajeet post go kys
All indians wear shirt and pants
>>18451883In a capitalist society where companies have to continuously sell clothes you need different trends each couple of years, different types of clothes for different activities like work, sports and going out to a party. If everyone used the same traditional clothes all year and only had like 5 sets of clothes there wouldn't be too much clothes sells.
>>18451883why are arabs and indians the only cultures refusing to get with the times?
>>18452861If we still dressed like this maybe they would. I can hardly blame them for rejecting contemporary Western dress.
>>18451883>I wouldn't even call this a "Western" style of dress.It is, though. 18th century English people weren't wearing the same clothes as Anglo-Saxon peasants. Fashions change over time. And the pervasive modern fashions you're talking about, including the casual and athletic wear, are rooted in Western styles and cultural norms. But one of the influences on this fashion has been imperialism. Shorts in their various forms are the obvious example here. They're a natural development from Western trousers and have existed since before Europeans started colonizing the world. But this colonization expanded the circumstances in which they were worn as a response to different climates. This is why people in almost every climate have been able to adopt Western clothing; there's a variant that works in most places. Deserts are the big exception where even Europeans were better off just going native than trying to retool Western clothing to accomodate an environment so far beyond the scope of what it was originally designed for.Indians are not an exception, they're just slow. Plenty of them wear modern, Western clothes. This transitional mix of native clothing with culturally dominant foreign clothing is normal. Back in the Meiji restoration you had Japanese people walking around with European style hats and jackets over their hakama and sandals. The reason India has been in this transitional state for so long is likely just poverty and lack of exposure. Despite being a British colony, British cultural influence did not extent evenly across Indian society, especially into more autononous regions. And poor people give less of a shit about chasing international fashion trends. They've got other things to worry about.
>>18451883It's the product of the Cold War. Most countries wanted one of the superpowers' support, so it was either American-style suits or stalinka-like jackets. Then the cold-war ended, leaving suits as the only option.The gulf states and India remained exceptions because the gulf states had oil so they could make deals with everyone and didn't have to comform to foreign expectations, and India was a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, so they also kept traditional dresses to reflect that.
I would say there is a shift happening, where a lot of the eastern countries are dressing much more conservatively even while wearing the 'western' type of clothes. as if they're stuck in the 1980s / pre 2000 fashion.In poorer 3rd world countries, it is understandable they would wear what they can get, but in places like south asia, they produce their own clothes.It kind of makes me wonder if it all has to do with the death of television and the hollywood era american media of 1950 - 2000And there is a thrift between the modern trends of europe and usa vs china. where, for example you have the youths in the west wearing the baggy clothes, while you're hard pressed to find anything like that on temu.Also in business settings, nobody in the west wears suits any more (I mean they do, but it feels dated, outside of politics)One of my theories for that is in browner countries, clothing is much more about telling your class - so there is a much bigger desire for people to dress up and wear things like suits. In the west, where everybody is generally well off, dirty work clothes can show that you have an expensive hobby or are a home owner, etc.
>>18452787They do, but OP is still right. South Asians often mix "modern" clothing with their traditional items. The point was that even with the presence of such clothing they still retain some traditional dress. Here's an example.>>18451883Would "post-modern" be a better term? "Modern" sounds dumb to use this way in /his/ of all places, considering that it has very specific definitions that we're all familiar with here. Not to be pedantic or anything, just seeking a better term.
