The Red Revival: Redefining Sindoor Through Style and Fashion

One of the most imitated, parodied, and recreated dialogues in the history of Bollywood is the ever-dramatic “ek chutki sindoor ki keemat…” enacted by Deepika Padukone, in her debut Hindi movie ‘Om Shanti Om’. The dialogue goes on to describe the significance of the vermillion powder, calling it a blessing from God, the mark and crowning glory of a happy marriage, and every woman’s dream. Theatrics aside, it’s a decent summary in the traditional context, steeped in patriarchy and a symbol of marriage. Now, sindoor is being reclaimed and revolutionised through fashion.

From wedding mandaps to the New York Fashion Week runway, we trace its journey.

This is the Fashion Reset series, where we trace fashion centrepieces of the subcontinent to their patriarchal roots. We study how these have evolved through cinema and culture, and eventually found a new life or interpretation through the lens of fashion.

For the uninitiated, sindoor is a bright red or vermillion powder that is applied across the middle parting of a woman’s head, starting from where her hairline starts. It typically symbolises that she’s married, in Hindu culture.

It’s culturally significant in different parts of the country, which use the sindoor for the same effect, but in different contexts. Many have since spun it around to give it their own unique twist. Think Bollywood actress Rekha, who publicly sported sindoor without being married for years, sparking judgement, speculation, and rumours. She continued anyway, unabashed.

But let’s not digress. To understand the evolution of sindoor, we start at the very beginning.

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Rooted in Folklore: Early Mentions of Sindoor

Mentions of sindoor are found in the epic Mahabharat. In it, when Draupadi, who was married to the five Pandavas, was humiliated, she wiped off the sindoor in despair and indignation.

Another story says Goddess Sita applied sindoor to please her husband, Lord Ram, in the epic Ramayan, and after spotting this, Lord Hanuman also put vermillion all over his body in a bid to please Ram. This is why Hanuman is often spotted in idol forms in shades of red or orange.

Some historians trace its roots back to figurines found in the Harappan civilisation.

Some consider the parting of the woman’s hair and the red powder to be symbolic of a lively river.

Sindoor Khela to Sindoor Daanam: Woven into India’s social fabric

The most prevalent use of the sindoor is at Hindu weddings, where the groom applies sindoor on his bride’s head, signifying the union.

In Bengali culture, a bride on her wedding day carries the “sindoorkouto” to carry the sindoor. Sindoor daan forms an important part of wedding rituals, where the groom has to put the vermillion on his bride’s forehead without looking at her. When done, the bride’s face is covered with a saree, signifying “ghomta” or veiling.

Another popular event is sindoor khela, a ritual during Durga Pujo festivities, depicted prominently in Vidya Balan’s ‘Kahaani’ and several other movies over the years. The ritual, which is held on Dashami, or the last day of festivities, begins with married women applying sindoor to the goddess’ feet and forehead, and then they smear it on each other. Widows and unmarried women, however, are left out.

In Bihari culture, they use sindoor that’s more orange than red. Especially during their main festival of Chhath Puja, women apply sindoor starting from their nose up to their hair parting. A popular saying goes that the longer your sindoor line is, the longer your husband will live.

In Punjabi and other northern Indian Hindu weddings, the groom applies sindoor on the bride’s forehead after the phere. If the sindoor drops on the wife’s nose when being applied, it’s believed to be a sign of his immense love.

Patriarchy at Play: Does Sindoor Represent ‘Ownership’?

But traditions often come with stereotypes. Sindoor comes with patriarchal notions. It’s a sign of a woman being married, while married men carry no such markers of marital status.

It’s a marker of control too, says Shaoni Shabnam, a sociologist who works as an assistant professor at St Xavier's College, Kolkata.

“It establishes the centrality of a woman’s identity as someone’s wife, implying that she’s not available for other men, and, most importantly, that her husband has exclusive access to her sexuality and her body,” Shabnam says.

Shaoni also says that the marker has often been internalised so much by women themselves, that it’s led to equating sindoor with beauty.

“Through a glorification of sindoor, not only as a symbol of chastity and purity but also beauty, sindoor is often seen within Hindu society as an item of beautification for married women. Related to this idea is the belief that wearing sindoor is the duty of a loyal wife, so her man will be pleased to see his wife wearing it,” says Shabnam.

She adds, “These cultural norms simply reinforce the power of the gendered ritual practices, in a heteronormative, patriarchal social order.”

This idea of “chastity” and “loyalty” as a marker of “beauty” has found its way into the top echelons of pop culture, of course.

Movies, Celebrities and Beyond: Sindoor Finding The Style Validation

Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone and Kiara Advani, Bollywood actors whose celebrity weddings were watched with close scrutiny, have all sported sindoor as a mark of their marriage. It’d most been in the period right after their closely guarded weddings, when they made appearances together in front of the paparazzi.

In a makeup tutorial video for Vogue, Sonam Kapoor applied sindoor, saying it goes well with traditional attire.

PeeCee has been spotted sporting sindoor on multiple occasions, with a variety of attires, ranging from glittery plunge dresses to monotone beige outfits.

A rare throwback photo shared by filmmaker Farah Khan on her Instagram account showed Aishwarya Rai sporting sindoor with a very Western outfit. Rai wasn’t married at that time. Khan warded off rumours by clarifying that Aishwarya had come straight from the sets of the film ‘Devdas’.

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On the other hand, Rekha has boldly worn her sindoor coupled with her trademark kanjeevarams for years now, despite being unmarried ever since a short-lived marriage many years ago. It’s always blended in seamlessly with her ethnic style, with her bright maroon lips, kohl-rimmed eyes, and heavy, traditional jewellery. Rekha donned the sindoor in defiance of norms that tried to link it with men she was rumoured to have affairs with.

In movies too, the marker has been a go-to option to depict the “righteous” married women. In the absence of the powder, in the movie ‘Shershah’, Sidharth Malhotra’s character cuts his thumb to apply blood as sindoor on his lover’s forehead.

Changing Colours Of Sindoor

In recent years, there have been many attempts at re-looking at age-old traditions through a modern, feminist lens.

Shaoni Shabnam, the sociologist from Xavier’s Kolkata, weighs in, “There is a specific term that is in vogue to establish wearing of sindoor as a feminist choice: ‘Sindoor feminism’. For me, it is an interesting development. It is important to understand that any dominant cultural marker also leaves open the possibility of a subversive appropriation of the same.”

During actor Rajkummar Rao and his long-term girlfriend Patralekhaa’s wedding, a clip that went viral was the groom asking the bride to apply sindoor on him too. He later said that it was an impromptu decision, but he was glad it happened.

Sindoor Khela, the Bengali ritual of married women held during Durga Puja, has also found new tropes through campaigns that have attempted to change its significance. Widows, unmarried women, and trans women were encouraged to take part in the festivities during a campaign by a leading media house. They called it a celebration of sisterhood and solidarity.

Shabnam adds that this attempted change of meaning is not only a symbol of resistance but also an outlet for creativity. “By consciously appropriating it as a symbolic resistance to the patriarchy and heteronormativity it represents, sindoor has been indeed creatively used by marginalised groups,” she said.

Fashion Changing The Game

A turning point for sindoor has been its inclusion and norm-defying use in mainstream fashion.

Rohit Verma’s fashion show themed on ‘sindoor khela’ featured cis men, trans women, acid attack survivors, widows, and divorcees walking the ramp during the Bombay Times Fashion Week in 2020. Predominantly featuring white and red in the collection, the designer highlighted that he hoped that his clothes would empower women to challenge norms that have been imposed on them for centuries.

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Masaba Gupta, in a campaign for her collection in 2018, aimed for the ‘glorification of sindoor.’ Describing the attempt which showed women sporting white, pink, and other colours in the parting of their hair, she said, “Today the use of sindoor has become more of a choice…I’ve encountered women who have been perceived as too traditional or not modern enough, for wearing sindoor heavily. Our version of sindoor, seen in a knockout pink and chalk white, is a take on this feminine symbol. This is a celebration of the new-age woman, a celebration of personal choice, or even a religious one; whether to wear sindoor as a minimal dot, or heavily in the parting of her hair… or to choose not to wear it at all.”

It entered the global fashion scene when Prabal Gurung held a show with models on the New York runway sporting many shades of sindoor on their foreheads, as part of his Fall Winter 2023 Collection. Skirts with thigh-high slits, flowy silhouettes, and tops with boxed shoulders, were all paired with sindoor in the hair. Being of Nepali origin, where sindoor is worn along the same religio-cultural lines as India, Gurung said the show was also a homage to his homeland.

These representations start a new conversation, which may even change the idea of sindoor from being uniform, monotonous, and boxed, to a symbol of personal style and diversity of choice.