The Indian bridal wear market is quite recession proof – it is a $50 billion industry,” says designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee. He knows what he’s talking about – celebrities including Priyanka Chopra, her groom Nick Jonas,and Bollywood megastar Deepika Padukone have all chosen his label for their weddings.
Pre-pandemic, the guest-list for an Indian wedding could extend from 100 to 500 people or more. In May, after the Government began allowing socially distanced weddings to take place, weddings were significantly smaller. No more than 50 guests were allowed, but many couples went ahead with their marriages regardless.
Traditionally, Hindu weddings are by no means a single-day affair. They are ebullient extravaganzas featuring multiple ceremonies in the form of pre-wedding functions, which can last up to five days. Mukherjee recognises that the face of bridal couture may be transformed by the pandemic. “An overtly couture approach to clothes, in a wedding that’s happening within your living room, is going to become a little silly.” However, he does not believe that the traditional big fat Indian wedding is a thing of the past. “Weddings are still deemed essential within the non-essential umbrella that the fashion industry has been pushed out to,” he says. After a vaccine is found, the designer believes things will eventually fall back into place.
Future
India is the only country with a legacy of approximately 16 million textile craftspeople actively involved in the production of fabrics. Mukherjee and his team (he presides over a 2,700-strong workforce) have been assisting customers through digital consultations over WhatsApp and Zoom, but he doesn’t consider this a portent of permanent change. “People are saying that online shopping is going to become the future of fashion, but I beg to differ,” he says. “Stores which offer experiential and investment shopping are going to be the businesses of the future.”
While not all recent weddings have adhered to the new protocols – endangering lives in the process – one new staple that has emerged from lockdown weddings is the face mask for brides and grooms, made to match their outfits. For his part, Mukherjee refuses to make masks, despite demand from his customers. “I do not want to put privilege on a healthcare necessity,” he says, calling the notion of creating “fashion” masks in a country where the underprivileged struggle to afford a basic face covering rude and preposterous. Instead, his clients are given extra fabric from their designs, which they can use to have a matching mask sewn separately.
The enduring success of his brand, even during a pandemic, can be largely attributed to his enormously popular Instagram account (4.5 million followers and counting), and diverse offering. Followers are able to navigate the story of each look and call the store to enquire about its availability. He has also seen a huge spike in interest in his pre-wedding clothing collection. Of course, he notes that in a vast country like India, what may be a ’main’ wedding outfit for a bride in Chennai may be a mehendi (a pre-wedding ceremony at which the bride has elaborate henna designs applied to her hands and feet) outfit for a bride in New Delhi.
He recounts the story of an Indian woman who married an Italian man in Bangkok right before coronavirus shut the world down. “All she wore was a simple organza saree, which is one of our entry level sarees, with no jewellery – just barefoot on the beach,” he said. Despite his optimism, the designer is all too aware that things will likely not be back to normal by the upcoming wedding season, which peaks between October and March in India. Couples are choosing to cut down on specific ceremonies, wrapping up the event in a day or two, rather than organising a week-long affair.
Kerb-side sale
Still, the Sabyasachi bridal jewellery line, pieces from which are displayed in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman in New York, has sold more than 70 items in the last few months. When the landmark department store took its first tentative steps towards reopening about two weeks ago, a woman asked for a Sabyasachi piece. “They took it to 57th Street and Seventh Avenue and the jewellery was sold on a sidewalk. It was their first kerb-side sale, Bergdorf had never done that before,” he says. Such is his reputation, customers will splash out on Mukherjee’s jewellery without even trying it on.
The designer has been working on placing his hugely popular designs within the reach of those without the wedding budget of a Bollywood star. A Sabyasachi bridal lehenga (an ankle-length skirt paired with a blouse and scarf worn during the main ceremony), starts from around £2,000 and could cost more than £27,000. To make his brand more accessible, Mukherjee has collaborated with H&M on a collection that was supposed to have launched worldwide in April of this year, but it is currently on hold due to the pandemic.
For now, his primary focus remains upholding the craft of India and creating jobs. “When it comes to Indian weddings, customers will never spend that kind of budget on a normal outfit.” But that budget, he says, is exactly what helps him to sustain Indian craft at its highest level.
He hopes his designs will become modern heirlooms, or even, one day, museum pieces. “People will start appreciating hand-made luxury goods, rather than machine-made,” he says, pointing to the recent calls for a boycott on Chinese products in India. Despite the impact of Covid-19, Sabyasachi Mukherjee has no doubt that India will be leading the global fashion and luxury industry in the next 20 years.