Lohri 2027 falls on Wednesday 13 January. That is a weekday in the coldest fortnight of the Ontario year, and it is the one Punjabi festival that is celebrated outdoors, around an open fire, standing up, for an hour or more.
Almost everything written about Lohri dressing was written for Punjab, where January means ten or twelve degrees and a shawl. This page is written for Brampton, Mississauga and the rest of the Greater Toronto Area, where the same evening is spent on a frozen driveway or in a park at minus ten. The garment decisions are not the same, and two of them are about the fire rather than the cold.
Why the outfit has to survive a fire, not just a party
The bonfire is not decoration. Guests circle it, and rewri, gajak, popcorn, sesame and jaggery are thrown into it by hand, which means reaching forward toward the flame at chest height, repeatedly, in a crowd.
Two consequences follow, and neither appears in a normal festive outfit guide.
Sequins deform long before fabric burns
This is the detail worth carrying away. Most modern sequin work is cut from polyester or PVC film, not metal. Those plastics soften and lose their shape at temperatures well below anything that would scorch the cloth they are stitched to, so a heavily sequinned dupatta or cuff held out over a bonfire does not catch fire — it puckers, curls at the edges and goes dull, permanently, in places, and the damage does not show until you are back indoors under a light.
The fix is placement rather than avoidance. Keep the dense work at the yoke and the skirt rather than on the sleeve ends and the dupatta corners, which are the two parts of an outfit that go closest to the flame. Thread embroidery, zari and mirror work do not have this problem at all, which is a large part of why the traditional Lohri register is embroidered rather than sequinned.
Loose ends near an open flame
The ordinary fire-safety point still applies and is worth stating plainly: a long chiffon or net dupatta hanging loose, and a wide bell sleeve, are the two things that pass over the flame when you throw something into it. Pin the dupatta at both shoulders for the parikrama rather than letting one end swing, and keep the free end gathered in your hand. Synthetic georgette and net do not simply singe near real flame; they melt.
The heat is on one side only
Standing at a bonfire in an Ontario January is a thermally strange experience and it catches people out every year. The side facing the fire is genuinely warm — radiant heat, not air temperature — while your back is in the ambient cold. Your face is hot and your shoulders are freezing at the same time, and you turn every few minutes to even it out.
What follows is that a layer you can move matters more than a warm outfit. A heavy velvet kurta is uniformly warm and gives you nothing to adjust; a mid-weight suit set with a substantial dupatta or a shawl over it lets you shift the insulation to whichever side is cold. That is also why so many Lohri photographs show the dupatta worn across the back rather than over one shoulder.
Two smaller things in the same category. Ash and ember spark carry on the updraft, and a pale hem standing downwind of a bonfire picks up grey marks that are easier to brush off while dry than to clean later. And Ontario indoor air in January is very dry, so a light polyester chiffon dupatta will cling and lift with static all evening; a heavier georgette or a cotton-silk will not.
Colour, and why mustard is not a coincidence
Lohri sits at the end of the winter crop cycle and the start of the sugarcane harvest, and the palette follows the fields rather than fashion: mustard yellow for the sarson, red and orange for the fire, rani pink and magenta for everything else. Phulkari embroidery, which is Punjabi rather than pan-Indian, is the traditional surface.
Practically, warm colours also behave better than cool ones under firelight. A bonfire is a very warm light source, warmer than a candle and far warmer than a bulb, so mustard, marigold, rust, red and antique gold deepen under it while icy blue, mint and cool silver go grey. If you want a cool shade, choose one carrying warm metallic work through it.
Pieces in that register, read off live stock with prices in Canadian dollars:
- Mustard Gold Velvet Floral Suit Set at $120 — velvet is the warmest thing on this list and the most obviously Lohri-coloured.
- Sunshine Yellow Handcrafted Palazzo Set at $140 and the Sunshine Muse Suit Set at $120 — the mustard end, with the work placed rather than scattered.
- Crimson Red Embroidered Velvet 3-Piece Festive Ensemble at $120 and the Ruby Red Embroidered Asymmetric Kurta Set with Dupatta at $120 — the fire colours.
- Crimson Charm Embroidered Suit Set at $135 and the Ivory & Crimson Grace Suit Set at $110 — embroidered rather than sequinned, which is the safer surface near a fire.
- Rani Gulbahar Zari Kurta Palazzo Set at $165 — zari work, which holds its colour under firelight better than anything else here.
- Mustard Mirror Cape Palazzo Set at $135 — the cape is a fixed layer rather than a movable one, so it suits an indoor Lohri dinner better than a driveway.
The fuller ranges are in Suit Sets, Kurta and Suit Sets and the yellow-register Haldi Ka Rang edit.
The first Lohri, which is a different purchase
Two Lohris are treated as occasions in their own right in Punjabi families: the first Lohri after a wedding, and the first Lohri after a baby is born. Both are hosted rather than attended, both involve a great many photographs, and both usually mean the new bride or the mother is dressed heavily while everyone else is dressed warmly.
If that is you, the practical advice inverts. You will be indoors for most of it, receiving people, and outdoors in bursts. Buy for the indoor half and plan a shawl for the outdoor one, rather than buying a heavy outfit that is uncomfortable for the four hours you spend inside. And because the family is photographed as a group, agreeing a palette across the immediate family is worth one phone call — the same argument set out in the mother of the bride guide.
For the men
A kurta pajama, with a jacket or a shawl over it. On the current rail every men's kurta set is CAD $105, so the decision is colour rather than budget: the Royal Yellow Heritage Kurta Set and the Red Silver Embroidered Men's Kurta Set both sit in the festival palette, and the Sage Mughal Heritage Kurta Set is the quieter option. The range is in Men's Wear, and the fit questions are in the kurta pajama guide for Canada.
Standing outside, practically
- Set the hem for flat shoes. Nobody wears heels on a frozen driveway, and a hem cut for a three-inch heel will drag through slush and ash.
- Put the outer layer on at the venue. A pinned dupatta does not survive a car seat and a coat, and there is no time to re-pin once the fire is lit.
- Budget for a clean. Wood smoke settles into embroidered georgette and organza in a way it does not settle into everyday cloth, and it is the usual reason an outfit worn once smells of something a year later.
- Do not wear the piece you are saving for a February wedding. A bonfire evening is the single most likely occasion to mark an outfit, and wedding season runs straight on from here.
Ordering in time
Lohri is thirteen January, which puts the shopping window awkwardly inside the holiday fortnight, when courier networks are at their slowest and the store is busiest with wedding-season orders. Standard delivery inside Canada is four to six business days after one to two days of processing, and shipping is CAD $25, free above CAD $125 — which almost every piece above clears on its own.
So the honest instruction is to order in the first week of December rather than the first week of January. Four weeks is comfortable, six is generous, and anything inside two weeks in late December is a gamble against the seasonal backlog rather than against the shipping speed.
Standard sizes run 3XS to XL, with custom sizing available on request — worth asking before ordering rather than after, since a customised piece is not returnable. Measure rather than guess: the measuring guide covers where to hold the tape and the size chart has the numbers behind each label.
If you are in the GTA, the shop is at 2575 Steeles Avenue East, Unit 9, Brampton, open eleven to eight seven days a week; directions are on the Brampton store page, and buying Indian clothes in Brampton covers the trip.
Frequently asked questions
When is Lohri 2027?
Wednesday 13 January 2027. Unlike Diwali or Eid, Lohri sits on a fixed solar date and falls on 13 January in almost every year, so it can be planned against with confidence.
What colour should you wear for Lohri?
Mustard yellow, red, orange and rani pink are the traditional palette, drawn from the mustard fields and the fire rather than from fashion. They also behave better than cool shades under firelight, which is a very warm light source.
What do you wear to a Lohri celebration in Canada?
A mid-weight suit set or kurta set in the festival colours, with a substantial dupatta or shawl you can move from side to side, and flat shoes. Avoid heavy sequin work on the sleeve ends and dupatta corners, which are the parts that go nearest the fire.
Can you wear a lehenga for Lohri?
Indoors, yes, and for a first Lohri it is common. Outdoors around a bonfire it is the harder choice: a lined skirt is cold rather than warm in wind, and the hem is the part of the outfit that stands closest to the ash.
What do men wear for Lohri?
A kurta pajama with a jacket or shawl. Every men's kurta set on the current rail is CAD $105, so the choice is colour rather than price.
How far ahead should I order?
Order in the first week of December. Lohri falls a fortnight after the holiday period, which is when courier networks are slowest and occasion-wear stock in the common sizes is thinnest.
Is Lohri the same as Makar Sankranti?
They are adjacent rather than identical. Lohri is celebrated on the eve, on 13 January, and is specifically Punjabi; Makar Sankranti follows on 14 January and is marked across much of India under different names. The dressing conventions described here are the Punjabi ones.
Where to look next
Start in Suit Sets or Kurta and Suit Sets, and see the Festive Season Lookbook for the wider winter edit. The garment itself is covered in buying a salwar kameez in Canada, and the cold-weather side in Indian outfits for a Canadian winter wedding, since wedding season runs from November straight through February.
