Dil Se From Vimla Patil Health & Fitness Living Wedding Traditions Beauty Reflections Short Story Lifestyle Prev Issue Next Issue

Vimla Patil was associated with Femina, India’s number one women’s magazine, published by the Times of India Group for 29 years. Femina is Vimla Patil's personal success story. Today, FEMINA is one of the strongest international brands with a vast readership in India and abroad. She initiated the Miss India contest in the mid-sixties for the journal and brought it to its present international stature. Vimla Patil promoted Indian textiles and fashion garments – especially handlooms – for decades by presenting over 4000 fashion shows in India and most countries of the world. After finishing her long stint with Femina, she built a brand new career for herself as a freelance multi-mediaperson with writing, events, public relations, shows and many more activities in her portfolio! Vimla Patil will be delighted to answer readers' questions. Please click on the comments page link at the bottom of the article to post your questions for her.

Paithani -Queen of Sarees by Naina Jhaveri

Choli Magic by Shaina NC

With the fragrance of autumn in the air – weddings – the ‘third passion’ of Indians all over the world (the first two are Bollywood and cricket) – is in full swing. Every young woman and man who plans to get married in the coming months has begun a breathless hunt for the best clothes, venues, food, entertainment and events. Flocks of Indian would-be brides and grooms – with their parents – from the UK, USA and other countries are already headed for the colourful cities of India to indulge in the one of the world’s biggest annual shopping sprees! And fashion designers, jewellers, caterers, venue managers and wedding planners are getting their wares ready for the coming season.

Mumbai has just seen unprecedented crowds pushing their way around at the Mega Wedding Show organized by Marwar magazine. This year, 104 vendors from all over India set up their shops at this glitzy show to offer the season’s best clothes, accessories, jewellery, presents and every item connected with an Indian wedding. The Femina Grand Wedding Show is slated to happen in October 2004 and the enthusiasm of brides and grooms knows no bounds! Avsar 2004, India’s International Wedding Show will be held in October 2004 in Mumbai and then in Dubai early next year. Other similar shows are happening in smaller cities and buyers of bridal finery are sure to shop till they drop!

Fashions and Looks This Season!

Actress Dia Mirza in bridalwear by Ragini Singhania

Most designers foresee a season of bright colours. "Indian brides must look like Indian brides and not like Eliza Doolittle from Pygmalion," they say, "This year, brides and grooms will favour strong colours like the traditional red, maroon, pink, rose, yellow or green depending upon the community or region. Ghagra-cholis with elaborate chunnis will continue to be the most-favoured bridal outfit this season. Designers will use detailed embroidery with real zari and gota work, which is now done by the finest artisans of India. Jaipur is the mother of all artistic cities in India. It offers a mind-boggling variety of embellishments and craftsmanship. Thousands of embroiderers work here day and night to meet the trousseau requirements of brides. Some ghagras cost Rs. 10 lakhs and people are not grumbling. We use semi precious stones, real old gota and silver or gold thread zardosi embroidery to create stunning effects in traditional colours. Pherozi or peacock ! blue will be fancied for bridal outfits too. When the outfit is embroidered heavily, we recommend a minimalist attitude to jewellery. A modern bride should do away with traditional facial decorations like patterns of bindis on the forehead and over the brows, and go for soft, natural make-up. I have designed special matching hair decorations this season, in which brides can arrange real flowers of their choice.

"Bridegrooms too, will wear traditional-coloured angarkhas or sherwanis with Aligarhi pajamas and delicately embroidered narrow shawl-like Uparnas. They will wear little jewellery and mojdis with just a touch of embroidery or gold. Hand embroidery for the bridegrooms angarkhas is very much in vogue this year."

Designer Prabha Mehra predicts a ‘sexy look’ for brides. "Brides and their grooms are infected with the wave of ‘oomph’ this year," she says, "Pikaboo ghagra cholis combine pastels with bright hues. I combine colours and jewellery to create a look which is modern, yet sedate enough to suit an Indian bride."

Bridegroom in Maroon Shervani

Peekaboo Bridalwear by Prabha Mehra

Fashion Update Ehnic and Alluring Designer Collections selected for you by the Sawf Team

Shopping Deals Fringe Necklace

Sarees Worn in Many Styles

Shaina NC's cholis are a special of the bridal season Shaina N.C., who has taken the bridal saree market by storm, advises that heavily embroidered sarees are the best bet for brides this year. She has been busy giving demonstrations of wearing the saree in dozens of innovative ways with delicate, sexy little cholis, which emphasise the curves of nubile brides. She creates sarees (which are worn with several chunnis or scarves) with the most incredible embroidery from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bengal and the southern states. "The spotlight is on cholis this year. Sarees are a fab choice for brides," she says, "Sushmita Sen made a pulse-quickening appearance in sarees in the hit film Main Hoon Na. With international celebrities like Anna Kournikova, Cherie Blair, Helen Mirren and the sensual Madonna wearing the saree for glamour, it has become a world-wide style barometer."

The Bronze-Golden Look Is ‘In’ For Make-up!

Once again, the catwalk and films are dictating the make-up and look for brides this season. With Esha Deol dancing in bronzed, golden make up, hair and clothes and models looking sun-bronzed on the ramp, brides too have discarded the pure white or pink-skinned demure look. Now they are rather leonine with their hair coloured gold or bronze and make up to match. Bipasha Basu, Mallika Sherawat of ‘Murder’ fame and even Kareena Kapoor have gone bronze, in their movies, and brides this season are now far behind. "A touch of a bronzer, a patina of shimmer, smoky, sensual eyes – these are favoured by brides this year," says make-up artist Marvie Beck, "The new bronzed look is golden, shiny and healthy. For Indian women, it is a natural look with their sunny complexions!"

Jewellery Designs are Booming!

The jewellery showrooms too are buzzing with excited shoppers! Trendsmith, the hi-end designer jewellery outlet of the traditional TBZ Nirmal Zaveri empire, offers the Mimansa range of jewellery. Hemchand Mohanlal & Co. offer art deco to very trendy and modern designs for the bride who wants an international look! "The trend in 2004 shows that brides favour long flowing necklaces with chandelier earrings. Coloured stones like emeralds, rubies and semi precious stones like pink tourmalines, blue topaz and citrine are combined with diamonds so that ornaments look impressive and match bridal outfits. The preferred metal is white gold," says Kuber Hemchand. K. C. Sen of Kolkata have just shown their collection. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls and a vast variety of other gems are set in a mind-boggling variety of jewellery and brides are hard put to make their selection for the D-day! India’s huge diamond dealer community has already held several fashion s! hows in the past months to position diamonds as the ‘preferred option’ of brides this year and with India announcing that it boasts more than one million millionaires (in US dollars – meaning approx Rs.4.5 crores), there is no dearth of buyers!

Designer Nisha Sagar's bridalwear

Entertainment at Weddings

Entertainment specialists are hard at work. What with Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Preity Zinta and others dancing at the international ‘wedding melas’ of 2003-2004, lesser folk are looking to professional troupes to offer similar spectacles. Malaika Aurora-Khan, Rajeev Surti and Parthiv Gohil are some of the artists, who will add magic to pre-wedding nights and celebrations. Wedding choreographers – again to copy the mega weddings of the last year – will be busy teaching filmi dance steps to brides, grooms and their families and friends so that the celebrations become memorable.

Glamorous Wedding Venues

Jagner Palace, Rajasthan, For Royal Weddings

Last but not the least, hospitality industry giants like the Taj Group, the Oberoi Group and most visibly the HRH Group of Hotels are pushing their resorts, banquet halls and palaces as the most desired venues for society weddings. The HRH Group is offering a complete wedding plan with a ‘regal wedding’ ambience at the heritage Jagmandir Palace, Udaipur. The other palaces on offer are the Durbar Hall of the Fateh Prakash Palace, Udaipur; Manek Chowk in the City Palace, Udaipur; Zenana Mahal in the City Palace Complex, Udaipur; Promenade on the Lake Pichola, Udaipur; Risala, a village experience in the Aravali Hills nearby and the venue of venues – the Gajner Palace near Bikaner! The other hotel groups are also offering wedding parties unprecedented comforts and infrastructure. Bridal families are also looking at locations in Goa, Kerala, Nepal and Sri Lanka for an added touch of exotica!

Celebrity Weddings This Season

There are not many celebrity marriages scheduled this season apart from the Rajeshwari Sachdeva-Varun Badola wedding in November; the Farah Khan-Shirish Kunder wedding by the end of 2004 and model Alesia Raut’s marriage to Alexander Yanovsky. "Last year was the high point of grand weddings," designers say, "The Sahara-Roy family wedding in Lucknow, the Lakshmi Mittal family wedding in Paris, the Zee TV-Subhash Goel family wedding in Goa and Mumbai, the Ravina Tandon-Anil Thadani wedding in a palace in Udaipur – all these created an international blitzkrieg of news and wonder!"

Indian Weddings Attract International Tourists and Wannabe Brides and Grooms!

"Not surprisingly," say wedding planners, "Indian weddings have become a huge international tourist attraction because Bollywood films have consistently weddings and the exotic games and functions attached to them. In Jaipur, Udaipur, Delhi and Mumbai, there are thousands of Western and Japanese tourists running around the most garish and ordinary weddings with their video cameras. Glamorous society weddings and star weddings create a stampede of visitors! People come from all over the world in search of the mystique and beauty of an Indian wedding. Foreigners are mesmerised by the dazzling rituals, the colourful ambience and the sheer grandeur of Indian weddings – especially when professionals organize them! Some foreigners dream of getting married in India in exotic locales like palaces or the Taj Mahal! For instance, the British stars of Aamir’s Khan’s Lagaan got married in the temple on the sets of the film with Aamir and ex-wife Rina performing t! he ‘Kanyadaan!"

View and Post comment on this article