Can Cloth Escape Gender? Queer Materiality and Androgynous Esthetics in Jamdani, Tangail, and Kantha

Can cloth escape the gendered meanings historically attached to it? This article examines gender ambiguity through Bengal’s historically significant textile traditions using qualitative comparison. It comparatively investigates Jamdani, Tangail, and Kantha within Bengal’s rich sartorial and material culture. These textiles historically circulated through feminized dress practices, particularly saris and domestic craft traditions. However, their material qualities also enable alternative interpretations of the clothed human body today. The analysis draws upon Judith Butler’s influential theory of gender performativity and identity formation. It additionally incorporates Joanne Entwistle’s conception of dress as embodied social and cultural practice. Karen Barad’s understanding of material agency further strengthens the article’s analytical theoretical foundation. Together, these perspectives position cloth beyond passive surfaces or merely decorative ornamental functions entirely. Instead, textiles actively participate in producing and disrupting socially recognizable forms of gender legibility. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative interpretive approach integrating multiple complementary analytical research methods. It combines visual analysis, material culture analysis, and discourse analysis for comprehensive textile interpretation. These methods examine contemporary fashion reinterpretations of Bengal’s historically significant textile traditions across contexts. Jamdani’s translucence and floating motifs create distinctive pathways toward expressive androgynous aesthetic possibilities today. Tangail’s structured borders and controlled drape similarly challenge conventional assumptions regarding gendered dress practices. Kantha’s layered stitched surfaces and tactile irregularities further encourage fluid embodied gender interpretations today. Each textile generates distinctive material routes toward androgynous aesthetics through embodied sensory experiences independently. The article rejects understanding androgyny as merely an externally imposed stylistic visual effect entirely. Instead, gender ambiguity emerges directly through textile materiality and embodied interactions with wearers themselves. Consequently, Bengal’s textile traditions become dynamic sites connecting heritage, embodiment, craft, and non-binary visuality. These intersections ultimately reshape understandings of gender, materiality, and contemporary textile-based cultural expression together.