| Summary/Abstract |
Clothing and fashion play a prominent part in the presentation of key female characters in Indian television family dramas, referred to as saas-bahu serials.1 The purposeful sartorial branding of the characters is in touch with, as well as influencing, popular fashion off screen, which in turn further impacts the success of these serials. Geared towards daily viewership, such fashions remain excluded from serious consideration by the local and global fashion press that reduces them to guilt-inducing, style-less faux pas. However, through illustrating the innovation evident in the design of saas-bahu costumes, this article provides a framework and rationale for validating such instances of sartorial pleasure as well as recognising how these fashions have brought to the fore a previously unseen global network of fashion producers and consumers who are otherwise underrepresented in popular fashion media.
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