how to wear a lungi

paan wallah

these pictures show us how to wear a lungi the perfect way

http://www.lungi425.com/how2wear.htm

MeCasa

Looks too constricting

seventies'hippy

You can wear an unstiched lunghi in a similar way to the top illustrations & it is very comfortable, I wore nothing else for several years,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

You can also bring the ankle hem up & tuck it in the waist for a different style.

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Nick-H

Not yet got into lunghi wearing, but the vesti, which I wear every day is not at all constricting and much more comfortable than trousers.

sirensongs

I noticed that in Sri Lanka the men, Tamil and Sinhalese, wore a distinctive lungi wrap with a little fold or pleat in the middle. I was too shy to ask about it.

Also (off topic) the Sri Lankan women wear a distinct style of sari wrap - Sri lankan Sari, a regular sari they've somehow draped with a little row of accordion pleats at the waist like a ruffle. You can always tell the Tamil women because they never, or maybe rarely, wear SL style - they do "normal" Indian drape.

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seventies'hippy

Yes this is just an alternative to wrapping & tucking one corner into the side of the waist, It's made by starting below your belly button, wrapping round till it meets, holding the start & the meet under your belly button & making plait like decreasing in size folds with whats lleft , then just tuck it in & with a small turn over of the waist line it'll hold for hours.
Very comfortable & although might sound complicated on reading the instructions it can be done in seconds,,,,,,,,,,,,

rangers

William49

You see men in South India wearing a lunghi, who gather them up very neatly so that they are half-length, leaving the knees exposed.

How do you do that without having a mass of material at the front - particularly if you have tied it with the tuck which enables you to take strides rather than only small steps?

Eastern Mind

Its a veshti they are wearing, not a lungi. After it is wrapped, you can reach down and pop up each bottom corner, in kind of a snap up way, making sure the opposite corners of each side come up. Then you just tuck it as before. This works only with the once around double thick method of putting it on, not with the back and forth method of putting it on. Very cooling to wear this way, and frees up as you say, your knees. This whole thing would be much easier to demonstrate than explain. Next time you're in the south, buy a veshti, and ask some guy to show you.

Nick-H

There is a neat way of doing it, which results in not too much bulge of fabric at the front, and also having the stripe verticaly down the front too. This was shown to me in Kerala; Tamil men seem mostly content just to bunch it.

Although I wear a vesti more often than very many Indian men (it's really going out of fashion in Chennai) I still find it hard to keep that bunch up for more than a few minutes! It is still, though, part of the wonderful flexibility and comfort of a vesti which makes me still prefer it to trousers.

William49

Thank you both - that's very helpful. And re-assuring too.

brishti

if one is not used to wearing a lungi - it can get umm... dicey.
there aint no belts, zips nor knots to keep lungi 'up'.
its usually a tuck in - which can get untucked... and does.
the locals are prepared well in advance for that happening.
just make sure the mouse is in the house



:brishti

Nick-H

...Even if one end falls out, the other usually doesn't. In technical terms, it rarely fails catastrophically!

namaste_cat

Must be the reason my hubby says he'll wear a kilt before he'll wear a lungi tho neither's happening any time soon! I always marvel at how adroit men are at avoiding catastrophic failures as Nick put it w/ lungis.

Bhrishti, maybe there's a market for zip-up lungis as w/ saris?

Eastern Mind

Who's saying there haven't been catastrophes? Most embarrassing moments with veshti.. for me.. first time wearing one at my wedding long long time ago ... prostrating in front of Ganapati shrine, and standing up .. well ... without. Good thing there's underwear. But like everything else that's almost public on India.. washroom breaks etc., there really is no problem in a quick adjustment of veshti or lungi .. happens all the time, just like men in trousers are seen hitching them up.. watch any Indian guy for more than an hour, and I'll bet you'll see a quicj adjustment, pull up, or a tuck here or there.