You know how most designers talk about getting the balance right in a look? Like if the dress is too loud, keep the make-up subtle or if the kameez is full of embellishment, let the churidaar be less outspoken? Balance then is key to a good outfit and certainly in achieving the right look.
When you walk into a designer store though, you’d find the balance tilted. Leaving out a handful (less than that even!), most Indian designers tilt their store inventories and displays towards good old Indian fare. So while on the ramp you find them experimenting with pure or adapted western silhouettes, the story when it comes to production and demand from Indian buyers remains skewed towards the desi fare.
And here’s why.
‘Auntie you look stunning!’ I’ve heard that more than a few times inside designer stores. While young India is increasingly shopping for design, a huge chunk of demand for designer clothes comes from 40 plus ladies. These are women who are getting kids married, have a hectic social life and whose spouses are top notch executives or good old businessmen. There is a certain social competition in these circles to wear the right designer tag and money is not a big problem. There is the unwillingness to wear anything but Indian and the brief is to make an older/bigger body look small and graceful. Masters at Indian silhouettes and karigari, our designers are more than capable of supplying to this demand and making their money so then why bother too much with western wear.
In fact, a top boutique owner recently told me that western wear is only the tadka, eventually you need your dal as the base. At least in this chain, I was informed that the Indian wear to western wear sales ratio stood at 70:30. My hunch is it wouldn’t be much different in other designer boutiques.
And why not? Because, like in any business, bhaiya sabse bada rupiah! And the rupiah is with auntie ji.
