The Hidden Weight of Kashmir Valley’s Most Beloved Robe.
They stole it, the Pheran.
Not the fabric, not the wool, not the thread—but the soul of it. They dragged it from the dusty alleys of downtown Srinagar, from its smoky kangris and the whispers of grandmothers by the fire, into boutiques with names like ‘Artisanal Kashmir’ and ‘Rustic Reverie’. Suddenly, this winter armor of the valley, this shapeless, timeless robe of resilience, had price tags and runway struts, slapped with labels that read ‘Bohemian chic’ or ‘Ethnic elegance.’ And it burned. Like the ember hidden in a kangri basket—it burned.
The Pheran was never meant to be glamorous. It wasn’t meant for billboards or Instagram hashtags. It was meant for survival. It’s what you wore when the snow suffocated the world outside. When the mountains turned white, and the air cut like knives, the Pheran was what saved you. It carried the smell of home: smoke from wood fires, the sharp musk of almond oil, and the faint tang of survival. But now? Now it reeks of appropriation.
I remember my grandmother’s Pheran. It hung off her small, hunched frame like a second skin. The cuffs were frayed, the fabric patched in places where time had gnawed at it. She’d sit by the window, cradling her kangri like it was a living thing, mumbling a prayer or a story in Kashmiri that always sounded like poetry. This was the Pheran. A testimony to lives lived in defiance of winters that tried to kill them.
But then came the outsiders with their cameras and notebooks. Tourists called it “exotic.” Designers called it “versatile.” Influencers called it “#SustainableFashion.” They stripped it of its quiet dignity, stuffed it with sequins and embroidery, and called it art. They forgot—or perhaps never knew—that the Pheran wasn’t just a piece of clothing. It was a rebellion. A refusal to freeze, to falter, to disappear under the weight of snow and time.
The Pheran wasn’t just a garment—it was a way of life. It was what you pulled over your shivering shoulders as you prayed for the snow to stop. It was what you wore to funerals, to weddings, to the fields, and to the markets. It was what the poets wrote about and what the laborers worked in. It was the armor of the Kashmiri man and the sanctuary of the Kashmiri woman, a home within a home, stitched with secrets and strength.
But now, the Pheran stands in glass display cases, sold to those who will never understand its weight. It’s paraded in places where it doesn’t belong, worn by those who will never feel the sting of Kashmiri winter. It has been renamed, rebranded, and resold—but what they sell isn’t the Pheran. It’s a hollow shell of what it once was.
I saw a fashion show once, online. The models walked down the runway in their bastardized versions of the Pheran—tailored at the waist, bedazzled with rhinestones, worn over skinny jeans and stilettos. And the crowd clapped. They clapped for something they didn’t understand. I sat there, staring at the screen, thinking of the old man in Sopore who wore his faded, soot-streaked Pheran as he sold walnuts on the roadside. I thought of the young girl in Anantnag who hid her kangri beneath hers, warming her hands as she walked to school. I thought of the artisans in Rainawari, their hands raw from spinning wool in the dead of winter, who crafted these robes not as fashion statements but as shields.
To wear a Pheran is to carry the history of a valley that has known too much pain and too little peace. It’s to wrap yourself in the memories of those who fought to keep their culture alive in a world that seems determined to erase it. It’s to wear Kashmir. The Pheran isn’t just fabric; it’s a battlefield. It carries the whispers of revolution, the prayers of survival, the songs of a land caught between heaven and hell. It is as much a casualty of war as the houses burnt to ash or the orchards razed to the ground.
And yet, despite it all, the Pheran survives. It endures. Because that’s what it was always meant to do—endure. It’s a quiet rebellion against the cold, against the theft of culture, against forgetting.
So if you must wear it, wear it with respect. Wear it with the knowledge that it doesn’t belong to you. Wear it knowing that it carries stories too heavy for your shoulders. And if you can’t do that? Leave it alone. Let it stay in the valley, where it belongs, hanging off the shoulders of people who carry the weight of history in every thread.
The Pheran doesn’t need sequins. It doesn’t need a rebranding campaign. What it needs is what it has always needed: to be left alone, to keep its people warm, and to hold its stories close, far away from the spotlight. Because the Pheran isn’t a trend. It’s a testament. A reminder that, in the coldest of winters, Kashmir still finds a way to survive.
(Author is from Srinagar and can be reached at: [email protected])
