You buy an Aisha Rao due to its superlative design, just as the Tesla, bonus is it’s electric, same way as Hyderabad-based Aisha Rao recycles, creates own fabrics, keeping no room for wastage. This time see her twist on traditional South jewellery, designed for an intrepid bride.
By Asmita Aggarwal
Is Hyderabad the new Delhi? With the growing number of tech billionaires, cash inflow is enormous, and if you thought the South, unlike Mumbai, more understated, shied away from colour, Aisha Rao will prove you otherwise. With the moniker “Purposeful luxury” her ideology channels upcycling, applique and techniques like in-house fabric production, not keeping unnecessary inventory, but focusing less on D Day bridal look, more on surrounding events like mehndi, cocktails, sangeet, “established10 giants in bridal wear are already popular with brides I needed to look beyond that space,” she grins, adding “There is no distinction now between North or South dressing, it is a global template.”
However, the designer who studied law from NUJS, went to Parsons and IED, Barcelona believes, subtle difference between North Vs South is that the latter won’t compromise in quality, even if that means shelling out big bucks. “I was feeling typecast as a mehndi designer, I wanted to look at other things. We decided to offer lighter lehengas, fewer kalis, and our embroideries are not weighty,” she adds. The waste of lining, lurex, dobby is recycled into bridal wear, the beauty lies in architecture inspired shapes and motifs. “Botanicals have been a mainstay, but we add a playful touch to it, using abstraction to make a point, we also have pockets in all our lehengas,” she explains.
Aisha is a risk taker, she tied up with Kohler last year, to do metallics for the first time, focusing on “hardware”, this year it is homage to hues—but with an interesting theme—“Preyasi” in Sanskrit, translating to beloved. In literature this concept is recurring whether it is Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) or Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen). “If you look at Mughal-e-Azam, Madhubala, there is love, longing, remembrance and final union,” she says. It may have been glamorized on 70 MM but there is an underlying tragedy as well as melancholy too. Like A R Rahman’s songs for the blockbuster “Taal”, unrequited love has been around for centuries.
What’s engaging this year is her foray into fine jewellery, with Shree Jewellers, designing 25 precious pieces. One motif that spoke to her was the ubiquitous paisley. This quiet but impactful shape has been celebrated everywhere-Etro to European fashion houses for eons and no one is tired of it. She has reinterpreted the Telugu Mango mala, golden mangoes strung together, representing luck, growth, and fertility-shape is also known as a paisley but Rao has given it an Art Deco appeal.
In traditional jewellery, Battu Mala is a classic bridal necklace, rows of coin-like medallions, can be worn as both a long necklace and a waist belt (Vaddanam). She has worked with Gutta Pusalu or in Telugu, “clusters of pearls”, it is generally passed on from mother to daughter worn with a Kanjeevaram. Though here it comes with a twist-Basra pearls and Navratan is the conventional format, Aisha has turned it around with diamond briolettes. “We made the diamonds look like pearls,” she smiles, a pop culture take on conventionality.
The beauty of an Aisha Rao label is not to use big words like “reducing carbon footprints attempting to greenwash” but finding ways to reduce wastage, self-reliance, as they make their own fabrics, embroidery is woven in base material offering design intervention-in lace or mesh within the warp and weft. “We don’t want to depend on China or Korea for cheap fabrics, the key is the same as Tesla’s ideology, ‘you buy a Tesla for its design, the added advantage is its electric’,” she concludes.