Description (Physical description)
A black cotton chew or dress with flowers embroidered onto the sleeves and lower section of the main body in green, yellow and black wool. There are green, yellow and black tassels on the hems of the cuffs and bottom of the dress.
Event Date 1/4/2019
Author: Alison Clark

Context (Production / use)
The chew took approximately 7 days to make.

Global markets and mass production are often understood to erode localised material culture; traditional ways of making clothing, buildings, tools and furniture loose out to cheap imports, once distinct material cultures are homogenized into global monoculture. However, in the case of the costume worn by Kalasha women quite the opposite is true. Accesses to cheap, mass-produced cottons, Chinese manufactured synthetically dyed yarns and a wide selection of inexpensive beads has, in the past twenty-five years, brought about a dramatic change in how Kalasha women choose to present themselves. In the past, unembroidered homespun, brown-black, woollen dresses were the norm and women wore relatively simple headdresses. Today every Kalasha woman wears a dress which she, a friend or relative has heavily embroidered with vibrantly coloured yarns, the dress is tied about the waist with a sash of similar brilliance and on her head is a headdress decorated with beaded patterns. Such costumes are so arresting that it is probably no exaggeration to say that for foreign audiences women’s costumes have come to signify the Kalasha above all else. The fame which the costumes have achieved is celebrated by the Kalasha, yet many Kalasha also worry that the costumes do not represent ‘genuine’ Kalasha culture as they are such a recent phenomenon and are so clearly entangled with modernity. Nevertheless, the costumes are in no way derivative, they constitute a uniquely Kalasha marker of the Kalasha’s very distinct cultural and religious difference from the world around them. Kalasha women wear their distinctive costume at all times when in the three Kalash Valleys, a conspicuous declaration of membership which serves serve to shore up Kalasha-ness in the face of conversions to Islam.

The costume Tom commissioned for the MAA was made by Sherbegum, the mother of the family he was staying with whilst on fieldwork and her daughter Gul Sahar. Sherbegum and Gul Sahar live in Krakal, the Kalasha village visited by the most tourists. Many Kalasha women in Krakal have small handicraft stalls in which they sell their old dresses and headdresses, as well as purpose-made beadwork to tourists. A steady market for old clothing enables Kalasha women to regularly invest in the materials necessary to make new costume. At the time of writing a Krakal woman might have four or five different headdresses to match with a selection of dresses and belts, whilst ten years previously a woman might only have one headdress and fewer dresses. Greater income -in part at least from handicraft sales- has led to a new fashion whereby women coordinate similar colours and designs across their headdresses, dresses, belts and bead necklaces.

The costume was made in the month of March, a time when each Kalasha village buzzes with the sound of manual sewing machines, operated by women busily embroidering new dresses for the Zhoshi festival which happens around the middle of May. At Zhoshi, Kalasha from all three valleys gather in the village of Batrik. An important constituent of the festivities that ensue are daylong dances for which women don their finest attire. Wearing one’s best and newest clothes is important at Zhoshi because it’s the one occasion of the year when a woman is likely to been seen by the majority of her community. Costumes are critiqued and it’s often at Zhoshi that new fashions are born, adulation going to the women whose designs lead the way forward. For unmarried women (and men), it’s especially important to look good at Zhoshi since the festival is also a time to find potential partners.

Zhoshi draws more visitors than any other event in the Valleys and the intensity of the tourist’s gaze has led some Kalasha women to boycott the festival all together. Sherbegum, for example, told me that she hadn’t been to the festival for the past few years because the crowds are too much for her, and because she doesn’t like the feeling of being on display. However for Gul Sahar, the opposite is true. She related to me how the tourists and the TV crews that come to cover the festival add to the excitement and that many women strive to impress not just their fellow Kalasha, but also everyone else who is watching.

The embroidery on the commissioned dress was designed by Gul Sahar. Whilst the flowers and foliage follow a pattern which is currently fashionable, the circular spiral is Gul Sahar’s innovation. Gul Sahar felt satisfied with her design and thought that the costume could hold its own at Zhoshi 2018.

The pattern on the belt was woven -for the most part- by Sherbegum. Known as gok s’ing cot’or the snake-horn design, it is a traditional motif, referencing the distinctive corkscrew form of the horns of the markhor, the largest and most impressive of the Himalaya’s mountain goats. The Kalasha understand the markhor or shara in the Kalasha language, to be shepherded by mountain-top fairies called suci . Because of its association with the suci, the shara has a special significance as a uniquely pure and sacred animal, the horns of which represent both spiritual worth and worldly status.

Four weeks after returning from Pakistan and whilst the costume was still in Tom's room in Cambridge waiting to be handed over to staff at the MAA, he heard news that Gul Sahar had converted to Islam. When a Kalasha woman converts, she never again wears her beads, her dress, her belt or her headdress.





Event Date 1/4/2019
Author: Alison Clark

Context (Field collection)
Purchased by Tom Crowley during his PhD field research as part of a Crowther-Beynon Grant from Sherbegum and her daughter Gul Sahar of Krakal village, Bumboret Valley, the Kalash Valleys, Chitral District, Pakistan. Tom commissioned the costume while staying with Sherbegum's family.
Event Date 1/4/2019
Author: Alison Clark

Description (Physical description)
Chew. A black dress made by Sherbegum. It is made of a synthetic cotton fabric with green, yellow and black floral embroidery in wool. Part of a Kalasha costume.
Event Date 20/12/2023
Author: Kirsty Kernohan