Anarkali- Aug 2012

Here's A Full length anarkali I designed for yet another cousin's engagement.
I am a big sabyasachi fan. I simply love the gold zari , pearl etc embellishments in his designs. They look so royal. I wanted  that kind of embroidery  for my outfits since a long time. and finally got it done.

Anarkali- Feb 2011

Here's a Simple Anarkali I had designed. highlighted the duppatta with A paisley motif brocade and pearl lace bordering.  I feel it could have been a lil better if I would have given a lil more time. ..nevertheless. Here's the outcome,

My Design-Feb-2012

My cousin was to get married in march 2012 and decided to wear a Ghaghra Choli for her reception. I had this white fish cut ghaghra which  I had worn for my sister's wedding reception about 7 yrs back. I had only worn it once and wanted to re -use it  this time and make something really elegant and new out of it.I decided to go with the theme - " White, electric blue , and shocking pink" now the next part how to use the other 2 colours blue and pink on a fully white ghaghra that's already been stitched.(check pic)

I went to my favourite fabrics store in Bombay and looked for electirc blue velvet for my choli and brocades for enhancing the ghaghra..after looking for about 45 mins I spotted this beautiful electric blue chinese brocade (pic attached).It had silver weaves.I thought I could add a border of it to the bottom of my white ghaghra..which will also help increasing its flair.I also picked up blue and shocking pink velvet in order to get velvet cut work done on my dupatta. ( I love velvet cut-work and gold zari work...am a biggg sabyasachi fan.) also bought bright pink raw-silk and thought I will figure out later where & how I can use it.

As I sat down to decide where and how I can use these fabrics to enhance my ghaghra , I realized I didnt wanna go for a boring straight border at the end of the ghaghra.I decided to patch  the chinese brocade over the bright raw silk fabric ,  following the weaves of the brocade.(check out the pic showing my tailor attaching the border to the ghaghra.) 

I was happy with the outcome but just added few small velvet motifs over the ghaghra  which the embroidery -guy had made. After I got the velvet cut work done over my dupatta, I  added the chinese brocade broder on all 4 sides of the duppatta with the raw silk piping on either sides of it.I made a  plain princess cut choli out of the blue velvet and cap -sleeves out of blue brocade. Anddd done!!!!   ;-) Phewww!!! I know that was really long story...!!! :D 

On the fucntion day , I drapped the duppatta as a saree (check pic attached). Many aunties at the fucntion thought it was actually a saree and not a ghaghra choli.

Anarakli-2012

Here's an anarkali I had designed for my Cousin's engagement.
I knew I wanted my duppatta to have big motifs. Luckily got a  green coloured brocade fabric which had big motifs ,  out of which I made a border for my duppatta. and kept my Anarkali simple with just banarasi Zari border at the bottom and mustard yellow brocade for sleeves.

Here's how it looked. -

My Design 2009

Hi...Here's my first post.
Well about 2-3 yrs back...in Oct, 2009 ,  I wanted to design a few good dresses for myself  for Diwali.
I had this blue brocade that I had bought long back & finally  decided to utilize.

I went to my favourite fabric store in Mumbai. I decided to go for blue , purple and pink combination...Yea it may sound a bit common now ..but about 3 yrs back , multi-coloured dresses & brocades were not as popular in retails as they are now. So getting back to the dress combi, I picked up the purple chanderi net for my duppatta. [Again...not so common back then ;-) ]  I didnt have a good karigar for hand work.Hence I bought this dull gold tikli embroidered  fabric to make borders out of it to highlight my duppatta ,  also picked up a blue pink shaded raw silk for my chudhidaar. Shimmer fabric which is toooo common these days,  were just in vogue for reverse borders, cording etc. picked up tht too. [ But now,  I wont even pick it if its available for free ;-)]

After buying all that was there in my list. I felt something was still missing. I checked my blue brocade again. It had purple pink and yellow paisley motifs. I thought why not go for a rich yellow brocade too. I  was a bit hesistant though. I didn't know how much  will a  multicoloured-brocade thingy be appreciated in our South Indian social circle ,But somehow just went for it.

And here's the pic of the outcome.(please excuse me for the pic quality.)

I really liked the way the Purple and yellow combi worked for the duppatta, hence I decided to use the same duppatta to make a ghaghra choli for my cousin's wedding. I used an old saree of my mom for the ghaghra border and lil patchwork on the top.

And Here's the outcome. (pic.)
And ...to my Surpirse...about a year later...I happen to come across  one of  Manish Malhotra's design which he showcased in Hyatt in Oct 2010. Exactly a year after I designed this duppatta, Yes Ofcourse his brocade is wayyyyy too rich.but just the thought of my design being even 0.1 percent similar to Manish Malhotra's design makes me feel sooo good :)

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