Kasavu

Some say that the origin of Kasavu can be traced back to the Buddhist era when women started wearing a two-piece cloth called “settu mundu” or “mundum neriyathum”. The design of Kasavu is inspired by Palmyrene, Greco-Roman attire which is a long piece of unstitched cloth that has a colored border. 

Kerala is the native home of Kasavu. In the pre-colonization era, there was no concept of saree in Kerala. Both men and women were supposed to wear the mundu, which used to cover the lower half of the body but not the upper half. No one (including women) was allowed to cover their upper bodies. If they did so, they had to pay a certain tax. After colonization, women started to cover their upper bodies with a shawl-like cloth called the Angavastram. This was the time when mundu was transformed into a 2-piece cloth resulting in the emergence of settu mundu. The concept of saree, a single piece wrap around cloth came much later and that was followed by the creation of blouses.

Kasavu is the zari work done with the golden threads used to make the border of a cloth piece, mostly in sarees. When Kasavu is done on a mundu i.e. dhoti, it becomes Kasavu dhoti.