Saturday, November 16, 2013

Indianized Gown ( Oct 2013)

Here's an Indianlized Gown that I wore for my cousin's engagement ceremony ( yea u guys must be thinkin ..how many cousin do i have???....believe me...u dont wanna know!!! ;-)  )

I was soooo tired of looking at neon colours everywhere....so I decided to opt out of it.
I went in for   peach  navy blue &   Lime green ( that's not neon , is it ;-) )
Now I didnt wanna have flair from the waist....as I knew people would confuse it for a floor length anarkali..
I had already worn a floor length anarkali as u can see in my previous posts..and didnt wanna repeat the design.
hence i decided to go for a mermaid cut gown with a lot of flair below the knee...

Now came the embroidery..again I didnt wanna repeat the gold and pearl embroidery ..and stone work is a complete no no for me...!!! 
I was just going through my collection and my old mirror work duppata caught my attention which reminded me Arpita mehta work is quite in vogue...and it wouldnt be a bad combination...gown with mirror work..not so common yet....
So decided to go ahead with mirror and cut dana embroidery...

now one more thing that I 'll like to share is..I wanted to sport a different look this time...
no earings..just a nose ring..Yes just like sonam kapoor at Cannes... 
Thankfully found a nice ring....
Here's how my dress looked....

I am  really repenting not having clicked good pics in this dress.....will try and get more pics soon.....
hope u guys liked it.... :- ) 



 Tip:
If u planning to get a Mermaid cut gown stitched yourself ,  you'll require min of 6 mtrs fabric to obtain the flair as my outfit  and of course , a fluffed Can-Can inside is necessary.

Hello everyone ,

Am back!!!
Here's a post after a year I guess!!!

I didnt really stop designing , but was caught up with lot of things, Hence couldnt update my blog...
anyway...I will just share a few snapshots of the outfits I had designed last year .


Ghaghra (half saree- 2012 Dec.) 

Now , this one 's a quick mix & match. Its a Ghaghra choli (some may call it half saree) The choli is of a different ghaghra (white and blue ghaghra from my earlier post) , lime green duppatta belonged to another Anarkali of mine n I  just a plain shocking pink ghaghra stichted n highlighted it with cute tassels.


This is how it looked. . . 



Silk Saree Nov 2012
I had also designed this silk saree , for one of my cousins's wedding... I bought pink fabric added jari borders to it and added the a gold brocade with big pink and green motifs in the pleats portion.

I decided to make gold jacket blouse for it....
here's how it looked....

fabric & embroidery details : 




Thursday, August 30, 2012

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.

Monday, August 27, 2012

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 :)
check out :