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Synopsis This work, considered by most of the outstanding social scientists of the world as the renowned author's magnum opus, afford the reader not only an insight into the past and present diversity of the dresses but gives him adequate data for the evolution of the Indian national costume.The pictures are a veritable feast. However, all this is a trifle compared to the vast amount of painstaking and careful scholarship of which every page in the book gives evidence wrote a reviewer when the first limited edition of this volume was released in 1951.This edition is now published in response to the persistent demand from students and scholars, with some added material I the text and re-arranged photographs.George Bernard Shaw observed that dress was to woman an important weapon in her armory of seduction, and that she fully utilized its potentialities. Dr. Ghurye, the renowned sociologist, substantiates Shaw’s opinion. He goes further and points out the parallel use of clothes by theme folk of India in order to show themselves to advantage.This invaluable book presents a constant account of the dresses of India from the Vedic to contemporary times. It is enlivened by the use of literary data, drawn from classical as well as folk literature. Dr. Ghrye explains numerous varieties of costumes found in India with a large number of photographs from archaeological and other sources.The author has also given in the introduction to this treatise a brief story of the unraveling of the importance of costume in the European society. The sociology of costume, which conditions its psychology, as revealed here, whets one’s appetite for sartorial knowledge.This work, considered by most of the outstanding social scientists of the world as the renowned author’s magnum opus, affords the reader not only an insight into the past and the present diversity of the dresses but gives him adequate data for the evolution of the Indian national costume.