BENGALURU: Suzegad Festive 2023’ is the name of the game – and collection – that textile designer Sanjay Garg is playing with those who love his handloom label, Raw Mango (RM). ‘Susegad’ is the Goan word and condition of being relaxed and laid back. In the campaign video of this new collection, Pedro Figueiredo, a Goan, is getting ready to marry Fiza Jha, a young girl with inter-faith parents – an elaborate fiction like the ones that Garg usually weaves around his collections just before he announces them on Instagram, and before the clothes move into his stores’ shelves.
The ‘wedding photograph’ is also a constructed setting. In it, Pedro, ‘the bridegroom’, has eschewed formal tuxes and a stiff white shirt for a brocade lungi; Fiza, ‘the bride’ is wearing the brand’s saree, a knotted Kunbi style saree, leaving the shoulder bare. On her head is a Balinese crown. And flanked by pink candles, on fine cutlery sit slices of pizza, as Susegad it can possibly be for a wedding banquet. Or you could call it a wedding feast heresy.
At his Chhattarpur studio, Garg, speaking to CE, explains the look of the collection drawn from Goan life and how it gels with his brand’s aesthetic. Garg doesn’t believe in binaries. “I’m drawn to Goa as part of it is a melting pot of cultures. The campaign is communicating that it is okay to be identity-agnostic. The characters seem to be saying that ‘let’s not go crazy if it’s a wedding, why do we need a priest for rituals, why can’t my friend do it?”
Cheese at a wedding
The ‘Suzegad’ vibe, that is a laidback vibe, considers a wedding as a dinner with friends. A wedding not with a hundred guests to stress over and a wedding dinner not with thali meals but one that can have 30 types of cheese. “The collection is a celebration of plurality, I don’t believe in belonging to one culture,” says Garg. The groom in the campaign video, for instance, wraps around his waist around a Raw Mango aubergine saree and wears it like an Indonesian lungi paired with a white shirt. The clothes signal various cultures in its drape, colour tonalities, stitches.
The plurality is also seen in the fabrics, silhouettes and in their design influences. ‘Suzegad’ has Mughal motifs; polo-neck blouses; the brand signature in Varanasi brocade is used in sarees and gharara sets, and aari embroidery is seen in the jackets some of which are quilted. The Goan narrative, however, makes its presence felt at all times in the collection. Standout items: a sheer organza and silk ‘Tivim’ saree with embroidered palla of floral medallions and all over floral butis; the ‘Bondir’ saree in joinery of sheer organza and silk with lotus motifs in sequins and zari, at times paired with a ‘Majorda’ blouse with a line of flowers outlining the form; the ‘Talpona’ sharara in Varanasi silk brocade features a scalloped jaal punctuated with meena. It is paired with a satin silk ‘Vasco’ blouse.
‘All real in my head’
There is whimsy in the way Garg mixes facts with his fiction. He says with a laugh that it is all real in his head and the campaign flows from that. The fuschia ‘Pedro pant’ worn by a model in the campaign, refers to Pedro – he is just playing the character of a bridegroom, but he is Goan —“so that piece of clothing will be a Pedro pant forever”, says Garg. It is also unusual how Garg thinks of colour; to him, Rani is a neutral shade. “I don’t wear colour, but I am not scared of colour, I play with them,” he says as if it is self-explanatory.
Shades of pink, coming as he does from Rajasthan, is naturally a favourite with Garg. It is also a shade that was the talk of town recently as the UK Prime Minister concluded his trip. In one of the photos shared by Rishi Sunak, Akshata Murty, the First Lady of the UK, was seen leaving India wearing a day saree, a Raw Mango blush pink organza silk saree, featuring gota and aari embroidered peacock motifs. Garg, who met her during the recent trip, says she reminded him of having met him 10 years ago. “She said she had bought a lot of handlooms and had said that ‘I’m keeping it for my kids…’. And yes, we have got a lot of enquiries for the blush pink saree she wore,” he says.
(‘Suzegad Festive 2023’ is available across Raw Mango stores in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad & Mumbai)