There was a time when you could recognise a community by their dress and their jewelry.

Because every group made their own clothes. Yarn from goat hair was loomed into fabric which was then stitched into a garment and then embellished with embroidery. The motifs and patterns wee passed down from mother to daughter and so the community was easy to identify based on what they wore. And this is still true of many large communities in Asia.

But others that were smaller and splintered off into different directions lost that to the harsh reality of having to mingle in and homogenize with others.

For many reasons, traditional clothes vanished even though the people remained a strong & bonded group.

And so we have this vintage skirt as a legacy of a lifestyle no longer lived – of a people whose lives have changed dramatically over the past 3 generations.

The last time I met a Bishnoi clan member he was wearing a business suit and handing out a business card as my expatriate banker in Singapore!

Life changes.

But our heirlooms stay with us forever.