The Bride Wore Black

Since almost all of Indian fashion’s bonanza is the result of our super-rich wedding market,what the bride wants to wear is a perfect pointer to the times we live in. When I was a teenager dreaming of my big day,every bride I knew wanted to wear Ritu Kumar. Kumar’s brides were trad-loving simpering

coquettes.

Today,the bridal trousseau market is an overcrowded bazaar. The wedding lehenga is your ticket to a Delhi farmhouse or a Mumbai penthouse.

But bridal-wear is a cold-shouldered term in fashion circles. ‘Serious’ designers/ journalists/ stylists/ models are cavalier towards bridal designers. It will bring in the greenbacks but is a lehenga really ‘fashion’?

It is the rare designer who takes on the country’s greatest essential commodity and turns it into the most unique thing you have ever seen. That man today is Gaurav Gupta.

Gupta,a graduate from the avant-garde Central St Martin’s College,London,has brought much of the British underground-style to Indian fashion. He debuted in 2006 with a collection of ruched saris that are now considered iconic. I would even say he was the first to give the boring sari the ‘coolitude’ it enjoys today,where even pre-teens wanted to wear one. Gupta’s cocktail saris were drapes of metallic georgette crimped and decorated only at the shoulder with three-dimensional metal and leather embroidery. Despite its ubiquity,it became the new must-have in every trousseau.

In his seven-year career,Gupta has rarely missed a step. From his McQueen-esque tartan gowns to rippled neon shifts from last year,he has worn his edginess like a badge of honour. His signature is a militant sexiness — power shoulders,metallic fabrics,body-conscious shapes and drapes — but dipped in absolute womanliness. Gupta especially is an important designer in India’s newly feminist mood. His hallmark has been to encourage brides in standing out and expressing their uniqueness. He has re-imagined the conventional sari and the lehenga and evolved them into futuristic fashion.

The modern Indian bride has been owned by Tarun Tahiliani and,in a supporting role,by Anamika Khanna. Both are genius innovators — Tahiliani with his Grecian draped saris and Khanna with turning the dhoti into a woman’s garment. But their respective styles have an inherent classicism about them. Gupta’s modernism is more radical. His aesthetic is entirely of his own making. The new and edgy dulhan is muse to others too: Kanika Saluja’s punk bride,Manish Arora’s kitsch queen. But Gupta’s entire story is devoted to this chapter of the country’s current cultural mood.

At his shows this year (his first-ever in Mumbai was at last week’s India Bridal Week),Gupta taught us a new grammar of couture. The line was an innovative marriage of sheer and opaque,bridal and gothic,sexy and shy. Voluminous ghagras were teamed with coats that had exaggerated shoulders,gowns with thigh-high slits showed new constructions,each back was diaphanous and embroideries snaked across

the body.

Just like the Indian bride,Gupta is the changing face of modern India. And I can’t imagine any to-be-wed not

desiring a slice of Gaurav Gupta’s heaven.

namratanow@gmail.com