ON THAT MORNING

The look:

There’s this girl who is getting ready for her wedding, there’s so much stress that you want to go out, you want to party… when she’s come home from a party, she’s almost too tired to remove her jewellery. So you see this girl who’s woken up fresh in the morning and has got her last night’s jewels on. I wanted to capture that raw moment when she wakes up and the sun kisses her curls. It’s very natural, little leftover make-up, very fresh, very young. The jewellery is there but it’s almost like your second skin. It’s there in passing, because the look is more important than the separates. Tousled hair, the sparkle in her eyes, a very Bohemian kind of look, but very relaxed.

The jewels:

One big diamond necklace, and one chunky diamond and ruby ring thrown casually. The idea was to throw big jewellery in a way that it doesn’t look as big but as if it belongs there. The point is how a woman relates to it. The idea is to show casual dressing, so that you wear important jewels very casually… like with a black shirt or a camisole, a black jacket, with short skirts and hot pants. And you’ll look so sexy. Wear this kind of jewellery with western clothes. You don’t have to limit your jadau with lehngas. You can wear it to dinner and come out looking tops.

THE BLUSHING BRIDE

The look:

I always feel that on the wedding day a girl getting married looks older than she is... how she’s transformed, she’s caked with make-up, she’s got such heavy clothes. She’s managed to go to a designer to get clothes, to an artist for the make-up and to a jeweller for her jewellery, and the coming together of these things on that day can be magical or it can not be magical. More often than not it doesn’t and makes the bride look older. So I wanted to experiment and show how beautiful a summer bride can be with lighter clothes and how the jewellery can speak, how the jewellery comes out when you do not use very heavy clothes. Also, the thought process that a bride needs a designer lehnga… I wanted to move out of it. I wanted this very demure, shy, coquettish kind of look… very soft, with a hint of colour… the jewels, the diamonds, the rubies, the emeralds come out and start speaking to you. Jewel tones from the jewellery is coming out and hitting you. So you don’t need bright lipstick.

The jewels:

The nath adds to the innocence and the traditional appeal. When you wear it later with your jeans, it looks glamourous. The maangtika is the third eye. We gave her very beautiful old chandbalis which look stunning, the necklaces are table-cut diamonds with green Russian emeralds carved like melons, a double Basra pearl choker under it and two-three rows of kundan. Then I wanted to highlight the Burmese spinel rubies and I used it with table-cut diamonds. The impact of this piece is beautiful — the white and the dusty pink. And in order to capture the colour, I’ve used a baby pink dupatta, a silver sequinned choli and an off-white lehnga with dull gold work on it. And a belt with layers and layers of table-cut diamonds with irregular-shaped emeralds; broad to narrow. That is how your lehnga becomes priceless. You don’t need any embroidery.
On the hands, it’s very important to show skin when you are wearing so much jewellery. I think the clothes and jewels need to give you breathing space, so the secret on your wedding day is whatever little skin you can show please show it. Do not cover your hand with lac and glass bangles, it takes away from your precious pieces.

LESS IS MORE

The look:

If you’re wearing a glamorous cocktail dress along with earrings and necklaces and everything else, it makes you look a little older. So I like to highlight a particular look and when you have a glamorous necklace, you don’t need earrings. The girl is going for a cocktail dinner or her own Sangeet. You walk in and people say, ‘Oh, she has the guts to do nothing to her hair and ears. And almost nothing on her hands.’ It’s a very strong statement to make and you have to have the confidence to carry it. It’s about looking younger and very glamorous. I wish women realised less is more. That to look glamorous you really don’t need long, flowing earrings and a big necklace. When you experiment, you begin to understand.

The jewels:

I gave just single table-cut diamonds, so the earrings are there but almost not there. Also, now it is very important not to wear matching earrings, but co-ordinated earrings. The ear-tops have got nothing to do with the whole vintage look we’ve got going with the necklaces, which are two Mughal medallions. It’s from my new vintage medallion series where there are very delicate chains and the medallions are very big.

BOLD & BEAUTIFUL

The look:

I have always been fascinated with how a woman would look if she has seven or eight necklaces one on top of the other and if she put a jacket on top of it. This entire look was all about experimenting. The short jacket I fished out from Dev r Nil’s store is something that you wear with trousers or a skirt… with something inside, maybe a camisole. I thought let’s just wear it over the jewels as if the jewels make up the blouse inside. How hot is that! You wear the jewels over a camisole or a nude top. You wear your lehnga that you had worn for your wedding. After the wedding day, girls often say, where am I going to wear the lehnga? The whole experiment was to bring on all the jewellery you received on your wedding, then you cover them with this jacket and then you pair them with your lehnga skirt. I raised the hair and gave her bangs. This look I would team with black boots and lift the skirt a bit.

The jewels:

Layered neckpieces… the jewels are the same wedding jewellery but the look changes. It is not traditional at all. The belt is used as the lowest necklace. The idea is to let the jewels play peekaboo. Let people guess what you’re wearing. I think girls should wear all their wedding clothes separately. The choli, the lehnga, the chunni. Make separate stories with them.

 

The idea is to depict a woman with her emotions and to present her emotions through jewellery and her clothes. I wanted to experiment with four looks, using her emotions as a very strong base. Showcasing my new line… where I want to show how very ethnic pieces can be worn with western clothes. I think it’s very important to transcend borders, to take the message across to the rest of the world about this kind of jewellery, how glamorous, how sexy, how beautiful it can look. It’s a fresh summer shoot with light colours because I don’t think the clothes need to be very heavy this season

— Raj Mahtani

 

 

Text: Smita Roy Chowdhury
Pictures: Rajesh Gupta.
Model: Lisha Sharma.
Make-up & hair: Abhijit Chanda.
Clothes: Dev R Nil and model’s own