Miss Apatani fashion show in Arunachal Pradesh: Traditional dresses

From the archive record

Young girls of the Apatani tribe show off their best attire and mannerisms in the traditional dress round of the Miss Apatani fashion show during Dree Festival in Ziro: June 2015. While these young women no longer paint their chins or insert cane blocks into their nostrils, like their older generational women, they have aspirations that are more in tune with the New India, even as they proudly and effectively showcase their village basket-ware, Apatani jewellery and hand-woven attire of the Ziro valley, in a stunning display of the new and the old in India. These girls might well flash Samsung and Apple phones, carry designer hand-bags and wear stilettos to their friends' parties in Itanagar, Ziro and New Delhi. But they remain true to their Apatani and Arunachali roots, like many of their