For her wedding she chose a chilli-red Kanchipuram silk sari, a typical south Indian creation made with real gold brocade. Keralan brides traditionally accessorise with family gold, a social indicator of their status – the cumulative weight is equivalent to wearing a bag of flour on your body.
And what of my own look to play my special role in my niece’s nuptials?
Ever since my own wedding, I have suffered from sari angst. I had opted for a cream design, my futile attempt to tone down the dazzling brocade.
My fears of repeating the experience have snowballed ever since. Despite a successful career styling Hollywood stars and the fashion crowd, my sartorial spirit is easily stirred if I suspect that a social sari scenario is on the horizon. Witnessing women who carry the sari, regardless of the work and fabrication and still retain their natural essence – as Ash and Radhika clearly did – is a source of inspiration for me.
This was my fashion birthright, to come home to a sari. The wedding date was lurching around the corner, and a series of bleak winter weekends followed, blindly researching “the sari” with my mother and mother-in-law, seasoned sari wearers, in tow. I had three fixed requisites: it had to be classic, within budget and re-wearable.
I discovered, with my relatively slight frame, that a pre-draped sari in a light silk chiffon was the way forward. It entailed two separate pieces, the “skirt” and the drape (the pallu), which I initially thought was too ruffled for my liking, before being convinced by the sari’s designer, Ridhi Mehra, that this was a design detail which would pay off. It was a simple silhouette with no embellishments: I let the blouse shimmer with subtle resham (gold thread work) and Dori embroidery.
This time, I was by myself draping the sari. The fit of the blouse was a little big, but I had to run with it – and run I did, because it turns out there was a catwalk of sorts for the wedding party to walk on. Familiar with the runway professionally, it was a personal first for me to walk it.
Slightly self-conscious, I felt the gentle push of the sari, the breeziness of the ruffled pallu quietly ushering me down the aisle, slowly dissipating any trepidation – and having overcome my sari trauma, I was able to focus on my ceremonial duty, to wish the couple a happy start, as I led the way with the oil lamp.