Hyderabad: Tailors specialising in stitching the sherwani have their hands full in the run-up to the holy month of Ramzan. Initially associated with the nobility, de rigueur during the 1920s and 1930s across all sections of the society, the garment is back in demand, and how.
The traditional sherwani is a long coat-like garment worn during very formal occasions and very similar to a British frock coat.
Incidentally, a sherwani will always have seven buttons on the front and three smaller ones on each sleeve. Believed to first worn by Nizam VI Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, the garment caught on for its simple elegance and became a favourite of the nobility.
After Independence, the sherwani somehow became limited to old Hyderabadi families, irrespective of their religion. However, it’s back in demand now, but with a “change”. Now, youngsters prefer designer sherwanis, a concept that makes the old Hyderabadi families cringe.
Old Hyderabadis insist that the garment must be simple, without embroidery “spoiling” it. “People place orders in the run-up for the month as they wear it to attend the iftar parties during the holy month. Politicians and socialites make a beeline to tailors before the start of Ramzan while the general people drop in during the initial days of the month to get one stitched for the Id-ul-Fitr,” said M.A. Gaffar, of A. Rahman and Sons, a tailoring firm at Abids.
A simple sherwani for a middle-class man would cost around Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000. “It all depends on the quality of the cloth. The better the cloth, the costlier the sherwani; the stitching cost remains fixed,” said Mohammed Sameer, of Fazil and Sons at Nampally Station Road.
