The body is taught obedience through the first cloth. Swaddle before speech, school uniform before dissatisfaction, is a shame before skin. Clothes behave first – and because – it is cultural.
In Volume IV: Truth, semi-truth, half-century, liesKolkata -based artist and fashion designer Kalol Dutta invites us to see clothes as a long and filled manual of social instructions. Drawing Lesson for womenA 2,000 -year -old guidebook written by Chinese historian Ban Zhao to his daughters, Dutta Anapac said how clothes have told people, especially women, how to sit, stand, move, behave, behave, and be kept out.
Kalol Dutta | Photo Credit: Rasa Bose
Rules written in thread
The book of Zhao may have been written in a way to prepare daughters to survive in a rigid society for mothers, but its advice – how modest, obedient, to be restrained – is stuck around for millennia. It appears in new forms: In the 16th -century Confucius Revivalism, girls are taught in cultures today in ‘values’, viral video promotes ‘feminine behavior’ and new aspirational ‘traditional wife’. All markers of neo-fascism and a adjacent recession.
Dutta was shocked by how familiar the text was. “While feminist movements and ideologies have developed,” he says, “major forces … continue to subscribe to the ancient perceptions of social and practical justification.” Even today, lessons are designed as care – especially from mother to daughter – can silently strengthen control.
Volume IV: Truth, semi-truth, half-century, lies
Photo Credit: Anil Rane
Clothes are political
Dutta was an important person on the Indian fashion scene, with the love of his fog eyes and all things-until the Central St. Martins-Pratik “clothes manufacturer” did not switch from mainstream to art a few years ago. Since then he has been tapped into cloth, craft and its connection, but this time to find clothing as stress sites. Textile sculptures like their 2022 showcases, titled Volume 3, Issue 2Which looked at the role of Imperial Edits in Japan’s late Shova period.
Block IV Four parts are structured like a story: Truth, Half -truth, Half-heartedAnd Lie tells us our clothesIt travels in Asian clothes – Japanese Kimono to Manipuri Fanak – To show how fashion is used for a long time signal status, how to apply gender roles and mark caste. The saree, often seen as a timeless symbol of Indian femininity, is one of the most disclosed examples. Blouses and petticoats, although they now appear to be inseparable from unstitched garments, were introduced during colonial rule, which were in shape by Vinay’s British-Victorian views. These facts, often get away from public memory, are central for Dutta’s work.
Their pieces – textile posters, sculpture forms, and layered fabric compositions – are made from donated fabric and are stitched with history. In these collages of clothes, Dutta asks: Who becomes comfortable? Who moves freely? Who should be seen?
Poster 04 (Restored Kimono) | Photo Credit: Courtesy Kalol Dutta and Experiment
Poster 18 (Revogant Siris) | Photo Credit: Courtesy Kalol Dutta and Experiment
Open a house
One of the most striking parts of the show has two textile floor plans. First makes a korean map Hanok (A traditional house), where the design reflects harsh gender roles: the front male quarters, the backward women quarters, separate doors for servants and laborers. In the second plan, the house is re -combined with women living. Now, there are spaces for broad corridors, shared rooms, holidays and ease.
In Dutta’s view, like clothes teach us how to shrink ourselves, architecture teaches us to shrink our movement; Where we are allowed to go and where we are not. Starting these places again, they ask: What if the houses were built around independence instead of discipline?
Blown 01 Photo Credit: Anil Rane
Blueprint 02 Photo Credit: Anil Rane
Inherited stains
Each dress used Block IV Comes with a memory. “Every donation was with the knowledge of the donor … memories, episodic events associated with clothing objects,” Datta shares. When old clothes are passed in elite places, they are called vintage fashion; But what is seen as indifferent to a group is considered shameful for another. For example, in many Indian homes, clothes worn by low -caste domestic workers are kept separate, never touched, let us use it alone or again. In the view of Dutta, “class hierarchy and caste structures are rejected … exist in areas of my interest”. Therefore, the act of the artist to collect and replace these garments becomes a way to dismiss this imbalance and show how the caste and square size silently and in-depth is also intimate as a hand-low in the form of anything intimate.
Jeogori 15 (Traditional Korean’s upper apparel HanbokPhoto Credit: Vivian Sarki
Slow resistance
Where the state uses monitoring and laws for discipline, Dutta uses slowness. Sewing, assembling, decisabing, their process is a kind of quiet denial. Says Dutta, “There are recurring motifs in the tasks that are markers of resistance, dissatisfaction, lack of access to economic activity … and expansion, clothes, will always remain the first line of our defense,” Datta says, “Dautta says, who has collaborated with Kolkata-based EK Tara, which gives employment to women with a weak background, for a series.
In Block IVThe garment is not precious or sacred, it is strange. However, Datta is not aiming to shock. They ask us to see again. On the folds of our clothes. We have absorbed on the rules. The exhibition prevails with silence that is full of questions. If every stitch is a sentence, perhaps the clothes we wear is trying to tell us something. If only we will hear.
Volume IV is on the user in Mumbai till 20 August.
The author is the editor of a literary and art magazine prosecution.
Published – 02 August, 2025 08:28 AM IST