Abstract
This chapter focuses on the history of clothing styles in India and Siam during the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The dress of Thai elites clearly evolved and adopted Indian materials and styles that were utilized by Indian monarchs during this period. These materials and styles both were shaped and were influenced by the political and cultural identities of these monarchs. Dress styles that hybridized ‘traditional (Indian/Siamese)’ and ‘modern’ fashion were used as political tools in reaction to the intense cultural interactions and colonial expansion, and the global cosmopolitan influence of the Victorian era, in the colonial and post-colonial periods.