Phyllida Jay’s ‘Inspired By India’ explores the many ways Indian design aesthetics determined the course of Western fashion

Anthropologist Phyllida Jay’s book Inspired by India: How India Transformed Global Design examines these zones of grey, raising important questions about the differences between the two, especially when seen in the light of a complex history of commerce, intellectual exchange and violent colonial subjugation. A sumptuously produced book, illustrated with a wealth of photographs of eye-poppingly gorgeous clothes and jewellery, it attempts to look at the history of fashion from the Indian perspective — and to a great degree, is successful in this attempt, especially in the three excellent sections, ‘From Kashmir to Paisley’, ‘The Sari’ and ‘Fabled Jewels of India and Contemporary Design’. Her analysis is sharpest in these sections about specific objects or design elements, while the broader history chapters that bookend them tend to ramble a little.

There is little doubt about the subcontinent’s role in the history of global fashion — think silk and muslin, chintz and paisley, Kashmiri shawls and jodhpurs. But Jay’s great triumph in this book is in going beyond the obvious. Take, for example, how she analyses the influence of the sari on European — and by extension global — fashion. She suggests that the bias cut, which revolutionised how dresses for women were constructed in the 1930s, might just have been inspired by the sari. The bias cut was pioneered by French couturier Madeleine Vionnet and involved cutting the pattern of a dress at a 45-degree angle on a length of woven fabric, instead of following the straight line of the weave as had been done previously. This, in expert hands, could be used to make dresses that accentuated the lines of the body, creating fluid drapes and soft curves — much like a sari. Vionnet, along with contemporaries like Madame Alix Grès and Elsa Schiaparelli, was fascinated by the graceful, flattering lines created by the sari, increasingly visible in the West thanks to travelling Indian royals.

Could one argue then that if it hadn’t been for the sari, Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white bias-cut dress, worn in that memorable scene from The Seven Year Itch (1955), might not have existed? The book doesn’t settle such questions — and that may not even be its larger purpose. What the book does successfully is point the curious in new directions of inquiry.