Bridal Bling

Bridal wear has gone extravagant with custom-made couture created by leading Indian designers

- Shweta Desai

THE glittering Manish Malhotra lehenga, worn by Radhika Merchant—the Ambani family’s youngest daughter-in-law—for one of the pre-wedding soirees in Jamnagar,

Gujarat, was a feast for the eyes of fashionistas. Adorned with gold and silver motifs, the designs were embossed with 300,000 Swarovski crystals and took 5,700 hours (roughly 7 months) to craft to perfection. Actor Sonam Kapoor Ahuja’s red and gold lotus motif lehenga embroidered using the Kalabattu technique by designer Anuradha Vakil, worn in the simple wedding at home, is now archived as a showpiece of Indian handicrafts at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai. And Deepika Padukone’s Sabyasachi dress for the Sindhi wedding at Lake Como in Italy, bearing the Sanskrit quote ‘Sada Saubhagyavati Bhava’ on the dupatta border is now a piece of Instagram lore. 

Bridal wear is no longer just the dress worn for the traditional ceremony but has gone extravagant with custom-made couture conceptualised by the country’s leading designer brands, to be hard launched on the wedding day. From established fashion houses like Tarun Tahilani, Sandeep Khosla and Abu Jani to contemporary designers like Masaba and Rahul Mishra, the bigwigs of the Indian fashion industry are dipping their pens in bridal couture to craft exclusive designs ranging anywhere from Rs 50,000 to prices that are revealed only on request.