Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai?

For our first post, lets start out with something manageable; the choli.
Well, I hope manageable.

The choli, along with the sari, is probably one of the most recognized pieces of Indian women's clothing.

Madhuri Dixit in Devdas, wearing a Sari and Choli from

This seemingly simple, though often elaborately decorated garment, translated as "blouse" in English serves several functions. Namely though, it helps preserve modesty in covering the breasts while supporting them. In a place where the climate is so varied, but often rife with humidity and heat, yet where modesty is expected, the choli is the perfect piece of clothing for the job.
But the choli wasn't always so. True cholis, it seems, are not worn until the Mughal era. Though there's occasionally evidence to support the fact that women wore shawls, pieces of cloth, or bandeaus of some sort to cover their tops, this was not necessarily viewed as "needed". In fact, the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana implies that "breast covering" so to speak was a trend that sometimes came into fashion, and sometimes fell out of fashion.

But this all changed with the Mughals.

Source, Wikipedia

The Mughals brought with them a newer concept of modesty due to Islam, and the true choli was born.

I say true choli, not modern choli of course because it was anything but a modern one.

Cholis at the time varied immensely, from full midriff covering pieces, to the TINIEST breast-holding pieces, from semi-sheer to completely opaque, long sleeve to short sleeve, but one thing is consistent in the Mughal choli: it was ALWAYS backless.

Modern cholis, however, are not. Unless they're particularly fancy or "designer" wear, most women now prefer to wear a choli that has a solid back piece and closes up the from with hooks and eyes.

I have several of these cholis, and they're great, but not for what we need. Our presentation needs MUGHAL cholis, not modern ones.

Our Choli:
Our choli is inspired by this one in the Met Museum's digital archive.

Choli, 20th Century, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Full info here

Now the date on this choli suggests it's a bit out of our target range for this project, so why am I choosing it?
Well here's why:

1.  It is not a modern choli in the least. It exhibits ALL the trademarks of a later Mughal/ British Raj era choli
2. I, your blogger, am a busty busty gal. And this choli, compared to other ones, seems to be able to be modified to accommodate that, as I do intend to wear and/or display future versions of this choli in presentations and at events.
3. I can very clearly see ALL the pieces here needed to make this choli, and that will save me a lot of guesswork and make this whole thing go faster.
4. Museums don't always date things 100% correctly. It's VERY hard to do this if you don't have the "expert" in there when the item comes in. While the Met I trust is usually on top of things, Indian textiles are usually put on exhibit for their beauty, not their historical aspects, so the "expert" may not have been there, or even provenance may have miscalculated the item when it was donated. 

So there you have it. It's a perfect candidate for our project.
Now lets get sewing.

What we need:

1. 1 yard of 45" wide silk or cotton. NO VELVET. Just don't, I see too many velour/velvet made cholis. Don't do this, even if you have a lot of it laying around you don't know what to use for. Honestly, look at this thing, you can use scraps to make it, so long as you have a yard total, so there's no excuse for not making it out of the proper materials. Even the arms on this thing are "pieced" together. I'm choosing silk in a regular weave (not satin, which would also be fine) because it's easy to work with, and I have a lot of scraps of it laying around.
2. Thread, that's a no-brainer right? Except guess who forgot to get thread in a matching color? This lady here. It's ok though, I doubt white thread is going to detract too much from this.
3. Muslin for a mock-up and lining
4. Our Pattern, which I will show you below. I'm not great at math, so you'll have to kind of guess what's going on here. I had my fiance do all the calculations. But you'll get the idea of the pattern shapes at least.
5. A LOT of ribbon, bias tape, SOMETHING to make the ties to hold this thing onto yourself. I'm probably going to make something out of scraps of silk or muslin for this, we'll see though. for the mock up I'll use what's laying around.

Ok, I think I've covered it all. Here's the pattern pieces cut out of muslin, marked up with a pen because it's a mock up and I don't want to waste chalk (tailor's chalk can be pricey and it comes off, not good for a mock-up you handle constantly)

Apologies for the skewed image. I cannot for the life of me figure out why it's on its side (It's normal everywhere else I open it)

1. Sleeve Gusset. This extends to a little past mid bicep, allowing the arm movement.
2. The top of the "cup" so to speak. This piece has a curve that's 13" around (the measurement of my breast at the point just above the nipple) the short end has a measurement of 7" (the measurement form my clavicle to my "around" breast measurement (this may be altered and shortened later on, as the mock-up isn't working 100% how I'd like)) and the long measurement is 8" (the clavicle to the "cleavage" so to speak
3. the under part of the "cup" part. This one is 13" on the long end (to match up with the curved top part), 5" high, and the bottom measures about 8". It's important to note here that the top and bottom of this piece are NOT parallel, but they actually get farther apart the more they go towards the "long" angled side.
4. The sleeve piece. There's two little right triangles cut out of it. Why? Because the extant garment looks as though the sleeve has two little triangles, one larger than the other, cut off it's top corners. These cuts match up with the sleeve gusset later on. I used the widest part of my bicep for the overall measurement of the thing.
5. Side-piece, to hold your gals in and to give an anchor point for your optional third ties.

Ok, so that's covered. I suggest doing a mock up ALWAYS, if not two. But since this particular choli is a practice one that I'm going to be using  as undergarments for a late-Mughal "tawaif" kurta, I'm going to do the horrific and make only one mock-up and machine sew it.

I know, this is BAD of me, but this one is NOT going on display for audience members, and I would like to get some practice underway before making the one that WILL be on display, and I can't really afford all the time (and money) it takes to hand sew and do multiple mock-ups.

So here we go.

I chose this fabric for a few reasons.

• I hate its color. It's a very dull peach-ish color. Not bright, happy, PRETTY peach, but very dull, almost dirty looking peach. But that's ok, because it will never be publicly worn visibly against my skin except for photos here on the blog, to show you the fit. So I'm ok with that.
• This color will go well as an under-thing since it's "flesh tone" or "peach" (whichever you prefer to call it)
• It's my first Mughal choli. I've made modern ones before, but this is a horse of a different color, and I'm not sure how I'll do with it. I'd rather sacrifice fabric I don't care about in the event of a disaster than fabric I love.
• Did I mention I hate this color, and that I have a yard of it, which I'm almost certain is enough for this project?

Any how, here's the mock up (please excuse the jack-o-lantern, coffee pot, and general mayhem in the background)

I'd like to take time here to address a few things.

The blue thing at the bottom is the tie in the back,. In order for this thing to keep your gals from falling out, the ribbon/tie in the back MUST go completely around the front. I cannot stress this enough, I tried without the ribbon under, and can you say wardrobe malfunction?

The dress form modeling this item is another issue. She's too fat for me, and her breasts too small. In order for me to get the proper bust measurement, I have to enlarge her to the point she grows armscyes twice my own measurement, gets a ribcage a good several inches larger than mine, and her breasts are STILL only a Bcup (5 cup sizes smaller than my own)

You're probably asking then why didn't I just model this? Well, the mock up is made of muslin, and muslin is semi-sheer. And since I'm short of pasties or anything else that would suffice to keeping this blog at least PG rated, it just wasn't an option.

But the silk isn't sheer, so I WILL be modeling that later on.

In the meantime, make your mock-up, take note and make any adjustments needed It should fit very much like a sleeved bra.

As for me, I'll be making dinner in the meantime and moving on to the next step.