The Indian bride is now spoilt for choice, she can tip the scales and move any side — Suneet Varmas beaming beauties or Amit Aggarwal architectural sculpted marvels, as couture moves towards an ideology rather than a boast.
By Asmita Aggarwal
He has learnt the craft from Yves Saint Laurent when the Y was still there in the famous name and his first line almost 25 years ago was an homage to the Italian painter Botticelli, so Suneet Varma has literally transversed the seven seas to set up couture in post-independent India, when NIFT was new and Noyonika Chatterjee was every design students muse.
His ICW 2018 was what he does best— shine, and there are women who just cant get enough of it in a city that loves to show what it has. So when the revolving lights beamed on us, we knew we were up for a ride on the bling train, with a sea of mirror work saris and embroidered bodices and some quite brazen almost brave ornamentation that took the shape of a blouse.
Flowers are having a moment on the catwalk with each designer offering a unique interpretation, not just on the ensembles, but also tresses that were tied back neatly, with Tarun Tahiliani loving his red roses and Pallavi Jaikishan straddling pink ones with jewelled hair clips. Accessories help accentuate any bridal outfit thats why Suneet had little butterflies flying along with leaf motifs fastening the buns that lovingly caressed the nape of the neck.
Silver, it seems is the colour of the season making an impression on almost everybody from Amit Aggarwals draped moving wonders to Suneets fully emblazoned saris sometimes worn with ruffled blouses. Mellow yellow is reverberating and has emerged as a frontrunner, along with white in its buttery avatar with dashes of red flowers on lehengas.
A lover of opulence and the roaring 20s Suneets tasselled and fringed cape-like blouses played on the sleeve, some came enlarged, while others played flute. Amit created a slithering version in black using engineered materials just on one sleeve making a huge impression on those who were looking for that X factor in a five-day-long presentation. It is now no more about Chantilly lace and bugle beads as it is about innovation, fabric manipulation as couture opens the next chapter with imbued interest in a futuristic approach. That gave birth to the sari-lehenga hybrids and dhoti-gown amalgamations.
Fashion is slowly moving into an era of details where designers focus on one aspect and keep the rest bare, largely ambiguous making it mysterious and unpredictable. Just like the sharara which made fleeting but ostentatious appearances in almost all the ICW 2018 shows, but never really took over the runway like gold has this season, as Indias affair with shine will never fade away.