Why was national dress needed to define the cultural identity?

(i) A nationalist feeling swept across India by the late 19th century. Indians began devising cultural symbols that would express the unity of the nation.
(ii) Artists looked for a national style of art. Poets wrote national songs. Then a debate began over the design of the national flag.
(iii) The search for a national dress was part of this move to define the cultural identity of the nation in symbolic ways.
(iv) The Tagore family of Bengal experimented in the 1870s with designs for a national dress for- both men and women in India.