The Nine Colours of Navratri

Navratri has a wonderful way of making colour feel like a serious matter.

Someone will message the group in the morning: what colour is tonight? Someone else will confidently answer. A third person will send a completely different list.

And somewhere in a bedroom that evening, somebody will be holding three dupattas against the same choli and deciding whether teal is sufficiently close to green.

This is all part of it.

Navratri runs for nine nights, and in 2026 those nights fall from 11 to 19 October. Alongside the dancing, music and devotion, many communities follow a colour for each day — which means nine nights can become nine wonderfully different-looking garba floors.

But before we start planning the wardrobe, one important thing.

There isn't one sacred colour chart

There is no single universal Navratri colour list followed by every Hindu community everywhere.

The colours people wear vary by region, community and family tradition. Some people follow the annual sequence enthusiastically. Some vaguely remember it on their way out of the door. Plenty don't follow it at all. All of those people are still perfectly capable of having a very good Navratri.

The sequence below is the one most widely followed and published for Navratri 2026. Treat it as an invitation to join in, not a dress code with an examiner at the door.

Nine colours are a tradition. They are not nine shopping instructions.

The nine colours of Navratri 2026

Nobody owns nine outfits

And nor should they.

If you attend several nights of Navratri, the trick isn't building nine complete outfits. It is learning how much one part of an outfit can change the whole thing.

A black skirt can take yellow tonight and pink tomorrow. An ivory chaniya covered in multicolour embroidery has probably already negotiated its way into half the colour list before you've added anything to it.

Then there is the great Indian wardrobe transformer: the dupatta. Change a dupatta, change the jewellery, change the choli — and suddenly the outfit you wore three nights ago doesn't feel like the same outfit at all.

And frankly, once everyone starts dancing, nobody is maintaining a spreadsheet.

One more thing — garba belongs to Gujarat

House of Rajasthan selling clothes for garba deserves one small explanation.

Garba is Gujarati. The chaniya choli, as worn for garba, belongs to that tradition too. We're not going to quietly move a state border because it makes the navigation menu easier.

Rajasthan and Gujarat have lived beside one another for centuries. Craft, textiles, mirror work, embroidery, trade, people and ideas have crossed that border in both directions.

And in Britain the boundaries become even more wonderfully blurred. A Navratri night in Wembley, Leicester or Birmingham can contain Gujarati families who have celebrated for generations, Rajasthanis joining their neighbours, children born in Britain, friends attending for the first time, and at least one person who learnt the steps from somebody five minutes before the music started.

So these pieces have a home at House of Rajasthan. But the credit for garba belongs where it belongs: Gujarat.

When the music starts

You can plan the colour. You can match the dupatta. You can spend considerably too long deciding whether the bangles are too much, put two back, and then put them on again.

But eventually the music starts.

The neat circle becomes several circles. Someone who absolutely knows the steps ends up next to someone who absolutely doesn't. The first few turns are careful.

Then the skirts begin to open. Mirror work catches the lights. Dupattas move. Dandiya sticks appear. Someone misses a beat, laughs and carries on.

And suddenly the colour you spent all afternoon thinking about is simply part of a much bigger picture.

That's probably the best thing about the nine colours. You choose yours. Then everyone brings theirs.