So, you’re at a wedding, draped in an exquisite sari that you’ve spent a fortune on, but your blouse... oh dear that cookie-cutter pattern is just taking away from the sari. Sounds like a situation a lot of us have been in. Amethyst’s new service The Blouse Room claims to have a solution — bespoke blouses according to each client’s preference and body type.
With the revival of the sari culture, now the focus is all the more on this popular Indian attire and its accomplice — the blouse. “100 days of sari picked up steam and a lot of people have been wearing it. But I think if you need to save the sari, you need to work with the blouse, because it can save the sari,” says Kiran Rao, owner of the café, who came up with the concept of The Blouse Room six months ago. Over the months, she’s been collecting and stocking interesting blouse patterns. “The market is right with people being creative with blouses,” adds Kiran.
For this project, Amethyst has tied up with stylist Shabri Roberson, who provides creative blouse-making solutions. “We get such beautiful saris in Chennai, but when we get the blouses stitched, they are often ruined. Buying a blouse is a bespoke experience. We are happy to help you source your fabric, embroidery and figure out the best silhouette for you,” says Shabri. Along with new styles, she will also focus on three areas — helping clients dress according to body shapes, according to the needs of the occasion and their individual style.
So, what are the trends that she suggests we try out? “The unstructured look is in. Anti-fit is doing very well, especially among the younger clients. Cold shoulders, off shoulders, scalloped edges and demi capes are in vogue,” she says. For a while, jackets were a popular choice with saris; the limelight has shifted to shirts now. Plain shirts with collars look rather fetching with these colourful yards of tradition.
Talking of changing trends, Shabri notices that no longer do clients use blouse bits that come with saris. They prefer looking for contrasting blouse pieces to team with their sari. “You can barely be creative with those one-metre bits that come with saris.”
Other than customised blouses, The Blouse Room also has a selection of ready-made ones by designers such as Masaba Gupta, Sonam Dubal, Tarun Tahiliani and Peachoo, among others.
