Girl From Kerala: Traditonal Full Skirt and Long Blouse

Full skirt with long blouse was essentially a teenage dress of Kerala a

nd Tamil Nadu. It is not seen very common now in cities and towns but usually worn by village girls.

The latest fashion of Kerala is full skirt with pleats and Kasavu Boarder and long blowse of Kasavu boarder with front or back open and is worn at special occations and festivals. Also silk materials with different bright colours are used for stitching custom made full skirt and blouse.

If the songs, `Pavada prayathil' and `Pavadai davaniyil', were to be written today, the lyrics would not be the same.
For, the pavada has almost vanished from the Malayali girl's wardrobe.

This pleated traditional dress has been replaced by jeans, trousers, salwar kurtas, midis and skirts.
In Kerala, only th

e `bold' wore the salwar kurta two decades ago. And then came the invasion of the electronic media and salwar kurtas found their way into the hearts of Malayali girls.

If you want to see Malayali girls in pattu pavada-blouse sets today, then you have to be invited to a wedding. Or you should visit a temple or wait for November 1 (Kerala Piravi Day).

The pavada has its western counterpart: the skirt. What had flowed down over the ankles during the Victorian era has, over the years, transformed itself to the midi, the mini and the micro skirts, all of progressively decreasing length. Micros and minis may be the rage in Indian metros, but Thiruvananthapuram is yet to catch up with this trend.