Traditional Dress

The traditional dress of Uttarakhand is built for cold, work and ceremony. Everyday wear is plain and practical, but for weddings and festivals the hills bring out bright colour, above all the orange-and-red pichora that a Kumaoni woman wears at every important rite.

For women, the older Kumaoni dress is a ghagra with a kameez or angra above it and a head cloth, while in Garhwal a ghagri, an angra blouse and an orni or dhoti were common. Married women's most recognised garment is the pichora (rangwali pichhauda), a length of cloth dyed a brilliant saffron-yellow and stamped with red, worn draped over the head and shoulders at weddings, namkaran and every auspicious ceremony. It is now practically the ceremonial signature of Uttarakhand.

Men traditionally wore a kurta and pyjama or churidar with a waistcoat, a cap and, in the cold, a woollen coat. The Pahadi topi, often with a distinctive brocade band, has in recent years become a proud everyday marker of Uttarakhandi identity for men across both regions.

The high-altitude Bhotiya and Shauka communities of the border valleys have their own woollen dress suited to the cold, and the Jaunsar-Bawar region in the west keeps a distinct costume of its own. Across all of them, jewellery is not an add-on but part of the outfit: the dress and the ornaments are worn as one for any ceremony.