Raw Mango’s ‘Garland’ collection weaves tradition with modern wedding sensibilities

The bride in the campaign film wears a green lehenga, blending generational differences while embracing flowers as a symbol of harmony.
From the  ‘Garland’ collection
From the ‘Garland’ collection
Updated on
4 min read

In the campaign film for Raw Mango’s latest festive collection, ‘Garland’, two different ideas of marriage are crossed to put together a wedding for a new-age couple. In the film, foreheads crease, family gatherings in the living room see some heat, but the institution of marriage receives no serious threat.

The quibble is just about scale. The young want a smaller, private event with just the people they know; the older Boomer generation still want a spectacle and extended community participation. And on the wedding day, the bride wears green!

“The bride, Madhyama, is wearing the green silk Mallai lehenga in Varanasi silk brocade with zardosi embroidery, which echoes the jhol of mogra garjas as the ‘satlada haar’ or seven-tiered necklace worn in royal weddings.

She is wearing it with our Suryakanthi blouse with zardosi embroidery that reimagines the garlanded statues of the Mauryan empire. The Pushplata odhani is worn on her shoulders and reflects her preference of a bridal look,” says Sanjay Garg, textile designer and founder, Raw Mango, explaining the look.

The ‘Garland’ collection is available at all Raw Mango stores across India. The range: Rs 12,800 (silk satin blouse - Gulshan) to Rs 3,95,000 (embro dered brocade lehenga - Nilkamal). Set within a home in Delhi, Garland - Festive 2024, like other campaign films of Garg, are fictional stories wrapped around special collections. Here, the bride — played by the Netflix Class actor Madhyama Segal, the great grand-daughter of Zohra Segal — is imagined to be a south Delhi girl who is a financial advisor.

She is, according to the campaign notes, someone who “always feels the weight of pleasing elders, yet cannot fathom the expenses and obligations this event is presenting”.

The ‘Garland’ collection is available at all Raw Mango stores across India. The range: Rs 12,800 (silk satin blouse - Gulshan) to Rs 3,95,000 (embro dered brocade lehenga - Nilkamal).
The ‘Garland’ collection is available at all Raw Mango stores across India. The range: Rs 12,800 (silk satin blouse - Gulshan) to Rs 3,95,000 (embro dered brocade lehenga - Nilkamal).

Saying it with flowers

Garlands are meant to be received and embraced as a blessing. In the film, they also serve as a common boundary between both generations — in receiving and wearing them, Segal is meeting her parents half-way; for this one day, she will keep the arguments aside. But flowers are to be as much part of her wedding finery as the jewellery.

In Garg’s film, garlands are at the centre of the campaign for another reason. “What flowers grow is not necessarily under our control, but what we do with them is,” he says, which could well be a definition of a relationship between two people, matrimony or no matrimony. “I think garlands are like our version of Ikebana or wreaths of the West. So, in essence, the collection acknowledges this unique Indian aesthetic and culture of garlands,” adds Garg.

Keep it small

While the characters are fictional — the groom is played by Prashant Prakash — the storyline is not, the designer says, as “the exact conversations” are being had in various ways across many homes now, in this festive/wedding season. According to a 2022 Business Insider report, over 33 per cent of Millennial and Gen-Z couples want a smaller gathering on their big day. Couples are now insisting on sustainable options, reveals a WeddingWire report.

Gen-Z and Millennial couples also, say reports, do not want to make tradition a weight on their shoulders. They want to plan their weddings differently from their parents — so the wedding day or the day prior they want to have fewer rituals or they may pick a ritual they connect with and include it in theirs. In ‘Garland - Festive 2024’, Kanhaiya Dangal, an annual festival practised in eastern Rajasthan by mainly the Meena and the Gurjar communities, for instance, is a wedding ritual that is part of Madhyama’s big day.

New rituals

The way the festival is celebrated in Rajasthan, a host village sends invitations to nearby villages to participate in the Kanhiya Dangal competition as symbolic of brotherhood. Why was it picked when ‘the couple’ in the film are not even Rajasthani? “The couple are seeking a wedding that they personally feel connected to, and that moves them.

This is the central theme of their conversations and tension. They came across the Kanhaiya Dangal performers and feel that the music and energy resonates strongly with them — this is exactly the emotion they are seeking and it is independent of anything, be it geography or otherwise,” says Garg.

Also, while ‘Garland’ is a festive collection, why does the film have a wedding story in it? How does Garg connect the two? The festive season in India encompasses the wedding season, he says. “At Raw Mango, we have never been prescriptive about defining what one should wear by labelling it ‘bridal’ or otherwise,” says Garg.

“Instead, we have offered our point of view and hope that people can adopt it and wear it in their own way, as they see fit. The garments work for weddings and equally for other festivities. Naming ‘Garland’ was not easy—we went through many iterations and in the end felt that being direct was okay.”

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