The costumes of Ladakh vary greatly with the land, culture, environ and the social life of the inhabitants.

The national dress of Ladakh is termed as `goncha` and is a supremely practical dress for the severe cold climate of Ladakh. The men`s version is a distinctly stylish garment. It is a double-breasted calf-length coat; it is cut wide, and the extra material pulled to the back to form two pleats, which are secured by a brightly coloured cummerbund. It is fastened on the right shoulder and down the right side with brass buttons and loops, and the edges of the stand-up collar are piped with silver brocade. The `gonchas` of the poorer people are made from coarse homespun woollen cloth, usually dyed to a dark shade of maroon. The comparatively well off people use a different variety of material for their `gonchas`, even lightweight synthetics for summer wear. For formal occasions, there can be few more stylish garments than a `goncha` in black velvet, silver gleam of piping at the border and collar, and a cummerbund of shocking pink.

The women`s `goncha` is a good deal less elegant than the men`s. It has a full skirt, gathered into a great number of small pleats, and it too is secured with a bright cummerbund. Older women, particularly in the villages, add a goatskin tied around the shoulders, wool inside. This may be replaced by a multicoloured embroidered or brocade mantle with long silk fringes. For formal wear, the outfit is completed either by a hat, or by the `perak` which is the traditional head-dress. This is a long strip of leather, reaching from the forehead half-way down the back. It is covered with cloth which is stitched with rows of turquoises graded in order of size, together with a bejewelled amulet-box. Silver chains and strings of coral beads complete the decoration of the head-dresses. According to the Ladakhi tradition, the head dresses are the fortune of the women as the women purchase and attach more stones on their head dresses and later it is passed from mother to daughter through generations. The `perak` is worn over a foundation which protrudes on both sides in two stiff wide flaps; although the ears are not covered. The fashion is said to derive from the request of a queen of Ladakh for a head-dress which would protect her from the draughts. The hat seems to be a comparatively new fashion, for nothing like it is described in the nineteenth-century accounts. It is rather the shape of a top-hat, but smaller, so that it sits more perched on the head. The brim is cut away over the forehead, leaving something like two horns on the two sides. It is usually covered with brocade, or black velvet embroidered in silver thread; a red lining shows at the upturned brim. The head dress is much of the appearance of a cap with ear-flaps, it may be deduced that the hat is a stylized development of such a cap. It is worn by women, and by men of the older generation. The head dress for women is straight and the men`s is at a rakish angle. Presently, both the `perak` and the hat are now confined to strictly formal occasions.

In spite of the somewhat bunchy cut of the `goncha` of women, the well-to-do Ladakhi lady has a striking and opulent appearance. The best `gonchas` for women are created in heavy figured Chinese silk. The Ladakhi women prefer to adorn themselves with heavy strings of jewellery; baroque pearls, turquoises, coral and amber to bedeck their neck and ears. Apart from `goncha`, the Ladakhi women wear some other formal and semi formal dresses maintaining the style of new generation. One of the costumes of Ladakhi women is the `chuba`, the more streamlined and elegant Tibetan gown, which was frequently chosen for semi-formal wear by the ladies of Leh`s elite. But these are not hugely worn by the women as it was worn in earlier times. Sometimes, the `goncha` is complemented by the `dupatta`, the light chiffony scarf originally part of the north Indian `salwar-kameez`. During the nineteenth-century, the women`s `goncha` encompassing its skirt, was made of a large number of strips of woollen material, in different colours, or resist-dyed in roundels, stitched together and falling in gathers. Similar types of dresses are worn by the troupes of dancers who perform at archery festivals and other social occasions.

The styles of dress just described are common, with minor variations, to all the areas of Buddhist Ladakh. The members of Muslim communities settled in these areas on the whole conform to the prevailing fashion, apart from the `perak` and probably the hat. The Kargil Muslims, however, have a rather different style. The men wear the `goncha` that are usually made of homespun woollen material in its natural colour. In summer they generally wear an outfit similar to the fashionable `Pathan` garb which is a cotton knee-length shirt over baggy trousers cut like a `salivar`, and topped by a loose waistcoat. On the head they almost invariably wear a knitted woollen cap. In some of the villages the women wear loose woollen kurtas similar to the Kashmiri `pheran` over a `salivar` and wear shawls to cover head and shoulders. The more modern and stylish women of the younger generation in Kargil town have more or less adopted `salwar-kameez` and cover their heads with `dupatta`.

The costumes of Ladakh are basically same but in some parts of the region have adopted the newer stylish apparels with the ingress of different cultures and modernistic ways of life.