Traditional clothing
The clothing of South India is highly diverse, but is connected by a common cultural ancestry.
South Indian women are known to traditionally wear the sari while the men wear a type of sarong, which could be either a white dhoti or a colourful lungi with typical batik patterns.
However, these are but a few of an expansive tradition of fashion. The saree, being an unstitched drape, enhances the shape of the wearer while only partially covering the midriff.
In Indian philosophy, the navel of the Supreme Being is considered as the source of life and creativity.Hence by tradition, the stomach and the navel is to be left unconcealed, though the philosophy behind the costume has largely been forgotten.
This makes the realization of sharira-mandala, where in Angikam bhuvanam yasya (the body is your world) unites with the shaarira-mandala (the whole universe), as expressed in the Natyashastra. These principles of the sari, also hold for other forms of drapes, like the lungi or mundu or panchey (a white lungi with colourful silk borders in kannada), worn by men.
The lungi is draped over clockwise or counterclockwise and is tied at the back or fixed just along the waistline. It's sometimes lifted to the knee and tied at the waist leisurely or just held in hand to speed up walking.
pancha gatcham
Traditionally, South Indian men do not cover their upper body. Sometimes, in a formal situation, a piece of cloth may cover the upper body. Certain temples in South India even ban men from wearing upper-body garments when inside the temple. In Andhra and parts of north Karnataka, men wear kachche panchey where it is tied at back by taking it between legs. A similar pattern is seen in women. All over the peninsular coastal region, men wear coloured lungis and women wear saris in a manner of tying them at the back.
madisar
Calico, a plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton, was originated at Calicut (Kozhikode), from which the name of the textile came, in South India, now Kerala, during the 11th century,where the cloth was known as Chaliyan. The raw fabric was dyed and printed in bright hues, and calico prints later became popular in the Europe.