The Nehru jacket is a hip-length tailored coat tor men or women, with a mandarin collar, and with its front modelled on the Indian achkan or sherwani, an apparel worn by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964. Ironically, Nehru himself rarely wore the jacket named after him, preferring the more traditional sherwani/achkan or western-style suit and tie. The apparel was created in India in the 1940s as Band Gale Ka Coat (English: "Closed Neck Coat") and has been popular on the Indian subcontinent since, especially as the top half of a suit worn on formal occasions. It began to be marketed as the Nehru jacket in the Europe and America in the mid-1960s; it was briefly popular there in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Once thought to be a possible new standard for formal wear for men (perhaps even replacing the Tuxedo) the Nehru jacket instead fell rapidly in popularity within just a few years. In the picture Prince of Mewar is wearing a pinstripe Nehru jacket.
Photo: Frankie Fouganthin