Fashion famously comes in cycles and things once considered past it can make a surprise appearance on the runway.
Now, the global fashion brand Zara has started selling something remarkably similar to the lungi, a tube-shaped piece of cloth wrapped around the waist and tied together at the front, mostly used by men, especially across villages in India and parts of south Asia.
And their ‘check mini skirt’ with ‘draped detail in the front’ carries a hefty price tag of £69 ($98) in the UK.
According to Zara, the skirt has a "front slit detail at the hem" and "zip fastening in the back hidden along the seam".
It is made of polyester and viscose and, unlike its inspiration, is dry-clean only.
Alright, there's a zip involved, which does elevate it slightly beyond the old school lungi, but there seems universal agreement on Twitter that, it's a lungi.
Many comments online have pointed out their surprise at finding the item in the Zara catalogue, says a BBC report.
There's also a lot of amusement at a garment most people associate with their uncles and fathers being marketed as women's fashion - and at a bafflingly steep price at that.
But others are upset there's not even a mention of the world lungi (or its equivalents) nor a reference to its origins.
Other comments accuse global fashion brands of producing their clothes for pennies in poor Asian countries, and say they now are even taking design and fashion along with the profit.
The blend of ridicule and rage also has a few asides about how the lungi debate might be wrapped into a much bigger topic, of whether it's ever right for companies to take titbits of other cultures and sell them for a vastly inflated price elsewhere.
