Newar traditional clothing

Traditional Newar clothing (Nepali: नेवार समुदायमा भएको संस्कृति पहिरन) refers to the everyday clothes worn by the Newar people of Nepal who are indigenous to the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding regions. The garments are associated with the old aristocracy, merchants, farmers, craftsmen and professionals.

Most of the clothes are made of homespun. Weaving was a major industry in the Kathmandu Valley. Many people had handlooms in their homes, and in the old days a spinning wheel and a seed separator were one of the required bridal gifts.^[1] People wove cloth for personal use or for sale. The finished cloth was sent to be dyed to the dyers who made up a caste group called Chhipa (now Ranjit or Ranjitkar). The practice of home weaving continued till the 1960s. Women warping the yarn on the streets were a common sight till those times.^[2][3]

A description of the clothes worn by ordinary Newars in the early 18th century can be found in the travelogue left by Italian Jesuit Ippolito Desideri. In 1721, Desideri visited Kathmandu on his way from Tibet to India. Describing the clothes of the local people, he has written that they wear a woollen or cotton jacket reaching to the knees and long trousers down to their ankles. They wear a red cap on their head, and slippers on their feet, he wrote.^[4]

In 1973, the government of Nepal issued a postage stamp showing a painting of the traditional costume of the Kathmandu Valley as part of a series of stamps of the traditional clothes worn in various regions of Nepal.