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Culture versus changing fashion

26 June 2009

DSC_0427Bhutanese traditional dress for women, kira, has taken a transitional change over the years. From an ankle-length dress bound around the waist by a kera and strapped on the shoulders by a pair of koma and a long-sleeved blouse or wonju inside with a small coat or tego outside has now altered to waist cut, half kira with wonju and tego, literally changing the dressing custom for Bhutanese women.

The appropriate dress code for the Bhutanese is no more defined in the movies. Depending on the character the actor plays, the dress is manipulated.

O n camera or on stage, an actor’s every garment is expertly chosen and arranged. There are several guidelines for deciding whether a piece of clothing is suitable. Fashion may seem frivolous among the ways movies can move us, but a film’s power can come out not only from emotions it generates but also from something as ordinary as a dress.

Home Minister Minjur Dorji said, “We Bhutanese should not lose our identity. We should never change our traditional clothes completely into something we don’t recognise as ours any more. It can be dynamic; changes are acceptable as long as we don’t lose it completely.”

He added that the most important thing film directors must keep in mind was our identity, that they had a responsibility to protect it.

O ver the years, the focus of Bhutanese movie directors has moved from an ordinary storytelling to a world of glamour. The actors in the movie world believe costumes don’t have to feel good; they just have to look good. Costumes set fashion trend.

Many conservative parents and teachers see the change as giving way to western ways of thinking and dressing. “Change is good but completely changing the national identity is something I am against. But I don’t think Bhutanese movies have any effect on the youth and the way they dress up,” said Pema C Wangdi, principal of Yangchenphu Higher Secondary School in Thimphu.

“My son loves watching Bhutanese movies. He has been watching them for a long time and I don’t see any change in the way he dresses up. But he sure dresses up like a Korean,” said Wangmo, a mother of three sons, who lives in the RICBL colony in Thimphu.

While many parents and teachers don’t see a threat in the changing dress code in Bhutanese cinema, many believe that Korean movies have a big impact on the youth’s way of life.

With the rapid development of the local movie industry, young actors are embracing western concepts, and western fashions are increasingly popular. Older people and cultural sticklers see this development as a corruption of the Bhutanese way of life.

But singer and producer, Dechen Pem, has a different view. “I take the change positively. Untraditional clothes are only worn by certain characters and it isn’t always a bad thing,” she said. “For instance, an actor wearing a shirt with rolled up sleeves is a police chief or a frustrated and overworked professional,” she added.

D irector Tshering Wangyel has a similar view. He said that it’s not about promoting glamour, but about practicality. You can’t think of any actor wearing gho and kira in a party sequence. They are bound to wear casuals. Regarding the new tego style, he said, “If the audience finds the change appealing, it’s a good change.”

By Kinzang Choden

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Posted by Chime · Filed Under Happenings 

Comments

2 Responses to “Culture versus changing fashion”

  1. Karchungla on June 27th, 2009 10:29 pm

    All the characters in Bhutanese movies must wear full ghos and kiras without any modifications. Thay way at least our true identity and the age long traditions are maintained in all the years to come.

    Why don’t out government make it mandatory?

  2. jigme wangdi on March 4th, 2010 2:34 pm

    this article should have talked a bit on how fashion would change our basic cultural ethos in keeping up with the bhutanese dress,gho and kira.presentation of statistics of bhutanese merging into fashion would help us know more and be aware of the changing times in bhutan.thank u.

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