A refined lightness is taking over wedding couture and designers help us understand why you should try minimalism is in
Recently, several brides from tier-two cities like Nagpur, Coimbatore and Surat picked up designer duo Shivan & Narresh’s minimalist black-and-white neoprene lehenga. When this kind of experimentalism moves away from the metros, you know something big is going down. “A lot of young Indians are travelling today and are exposed to good design, so they are starting to appreciate cuts as much as surfaces,” says Narresh Kukreja, explaining why the western minimalist look is now the trend du jour. “Indians have an inherent desire to always stand out. This is also getting addressed in this new search for minimalism. There is so much excess in wedding couture, that, to stand out, people are cutting down,” he says.
Moreover, the principle of ‘less is more’ is quite practical—a pared down canvas means the focus is on the bride and groom. So this year, we can state that the fall bride will be staying true to the season: shedding the layers, but keeping the colour. And helping them ‘wear the clothes and not let the clothes wear them’ are designers like Tarun Tahiliani, Varun Bahl and Nachiket Barve, who are creating collections where the accent is on clean cuts, unfussy silhouettes and subtle embellishments. With India Couture Week opening next week (July 20), we speak with designers and top wedding planners to understand why minimalism should be your new mantra.
With inputs from Rashmi Rajagopal Lobo