The modern Indian man is dressing with a confidence that would have seemed improbable a decade ago.
From Sabyasachi’s runways to Gen Z’s Instagram grids to the GQ red carpet, florals, pearls, drape and expressive grooming are everywhere. To the casual observer, it looks like a contemporary break from the shame that once governed menswear.
But this aesthetic isn’t new. Indian men have dressed like this before, centuries before.
To explain the current shift in Indian menswear, we must look across three periods: the flamboyance of pre-colonial dress, the restraint imposed by colonial rule, and the ongoing unlearning shaping the present.
The Original Maximalists
During the era of the Maharajas and the Mughal courts, masculinity expressed itself through splendour. Men were the original maximalists. To be a man of status, a king, courtier, warrior or wealthy merchant, was to be visibly adorned. Portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries show rulers dripping in emeralds, layered in pearls, their eyes defined with kohl (surma) to sharpen the gaze.
Crucially, the clothing of this period was largely unbifurcated. Angarkhas, jamas and dhotis draped rather than constrained. Floral motifs, shimmering zari, jewellery and soft silks were not coded feminine; they were markers of authority and refinement.
That aesthetic confidence collapsed under colonial rule. The British gaze reclassified indigenous male beauty as “effeminate,” “excessive” and “unmanly.” To function within the colonial bureaucracy, the Indian man adapted.
The flamboyance of the Maharaja disappeared into the bureaucracy of the Babu.
The Unlearning
For the first time in two centuries, Indian men no longer fear colour, jewellery, or drape.
So, what really changed?
The Millennial and Gen Z Indian man grew up straddling two realities. one that still enforced colonial-era masculinity through clichés like “boys don’t cry” and “pink is for girls,” and another offering a digital window into global, gender-fluid aesthetics.
He has watched Ranveer Singh be roasted and revered in the same week; watched K-pop idols weaponise eyeliner; watched Indian creators make skirts, pearls, and painted nails aspirational rather than scandalous.
He has also witnessed women claim agency in every domain, careers, money, bodies, desire, forcing him to rethink his place in a world where they are no longer the centre of authority.
Once that structure loosened, men finally had room to explore fashion.
The "effeminate" slur of the colonial era has lost its teeth. Men are healing from generations of inherited rigidity, and fashion is simply the most visible trace of that change. Indian masculinity is learning to exist without shame.
And when shame lifts, style breathes.