:: Background of Tangail Sharee ::

'Tangail Sharee' - those couple of words can sketch a greater view of culture, heritage and an extensive exposure on Bangladeshi fashion. Sharee is the basic dress of Bangladeshi women as well as most of the women in Indian subcontinent. Women gives emphasis to have and wear sharees made from fine cotton in Tant (handloom). Form the ancient period, weaving is the way to make sharees which still exist this days. It is told that "A Sharee can figure a woman significantly than any other clothes". Handloom Sharees are different than silk or machine made sharees. Tangail Sharee is the most desirable cloth to the women who wear Sharee all over the world for its fine component, color, design, especially handmade designs which are related to our nature, cultural symbols and other related phenomena.

Bangladeshi Sharees are found in different name and with different specialties. The legendary 'Moslyne' and 'Dhakai Jamdani' are also to be mentioned. Those were/are also made by handloom. However, these are most expensive and only wear in any social event. On the other hand, Tangail Sharee is as legendary as Moslyne and covered typical to aristocrat level.

Back to History
Part of 'Aryia Tribal' who were involved with making clothes were called 'Tontubay' - means cotton weavers, migrated to East Bengal through Murshidabad from the bank of Indus. This very ethnic group settled for a while at Dinajpur and Rajshahi first. Later, they migrated to Kishoregonj, Dhamrai. However, the weather and environment did not fit to the clothes they made. Finally they started to move somewhere else and find a place at the basin of river Dhaleshwari under Tangail district. They found that the water, weather and other attributes to make a fine cloth perfectly compatible to their demand. As a result, a large number of 'Tontubay' moved to Tangail from other places and resided permanently. The entire time scale was 200 years after they came in East Bengal for the first time.
Attributes of Tangail Sharee
Sharee The quality of Tangail Sharee is quite different than other sharees in Bangladesh for its special attributes and characteristics.

  • It never shrink: because of cotton; the cotton is specially processed with melted corn.
  • Different and exclusive design: totally hand made design and exclusive design, which sometimes takes even a year to be complete.
  • Color: the color of Tangail Sharee seems to rainbow in diversity. Besides, there are extensive colors and experimental designs are made up by the Tontubay