The fashion designer at work. Picture by S.H. Patgiri

Dec. 14: Kareen Tonsing is an upcoming fashion designer. However, she is different. The fashionista’s unique selling products — a novelty in the city — are her designer “fairytale” wedding gowns.

Inspired by English medieval and Victorian period designs, Kareen’s gowns have become the season’s flavour. It has in turn also inspired her to fashion evening dresses and Western formal wear for Christmas.

“Brides-to-be here have cut down on their Shillong trips in quest of a wedding gown. Recently, I even received orders for evening gowns for Christmas parties from Kohima,” said Kareen enthusiastically.

Agreed Sonali whose bridal gown, complete with a long train, was designed by Kareen. “My friends could not stop exclaiming over my dress. Since then Kareen’s name has spread in Kohima through word of mouth.”

The designer is now flooded with orders for party gowns and evening dresses for X-Mas get-togethers. “Many women do not like to wear trendy slinky dresses during Christmas. They prefer traditional gowns and dresses in satin and silk, of course with a modern touch,” said the Manipur-born designer, who did her studies in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore.

For a short period she also taught in a school run by Christian missionaries in Hong Kong. Kareen’s designs for weddings, the most “important rite of passage” in a woman’s life, is of course modelled keeping in mind “the physical structure, comfort and freedom of the modern bride. I adapt designs according to the form of the bride since a gown can either make or mar her confidence,” she added.

The designer, who passed out from the J.D. Institute of Fashion Technology in Bangalore in 1998, learnt the craft expertise of bridal gowns from Thai Design, a niche boutique in Bangalore. “I always dreamt of dressing up brides. Moreover, designs crowded into my mind. But sewing wedding gowns required a special expertise,” said Kareen.

After acquiring the required expertise, Kareen has put it to good use in fashioning exclusive outfits for the Christmas season. “Gowns with trains or Victorian style dresses with beading and sheer bodices are picture-perfect for Christmas. But they are not readily available off the shelves here. Moreover, the ones that are available are steeply priced. I want to give the middle-class Christmas shopper in the Northeast designer options that are at the same time reasonable,” she said.

The fashionista, who has held several exhibitions of wedding gowns and Western formal and casual wear in Bangalore, now plans to open a boutique here. “The fashion conscious need no longer hunt in Mumbai or Bangalore for bridal wear. Guwahati can be the destination,” said Kareen, who takes care to import beads and sequins for embellishment specially from Hong Kong in order to give her designs the “right look”.