FASHION TRENDS: IT IS RAINING FAIR COMMERCE LABELS THIS DIWALI

This Diwali, the overdressed, glitzy glam look has been carefully replaced with artisanal, hand-made, handtucked and hand-embellished ensembles. Block printing tops this list. The free-flowing forms of the kaftan, the aabha kurtas, and the anarkalis worn with the chauda pyjamas take up every fashion diva's mind space.

- ANSHU KHANNA

As the fervour of dressing up for a festive occasion A catches every woman's imagination and metro denizens get inundated with party invitations, dressing up with a conscious and sustainable collection catches steam. Royal and palace ateliers are riding this wave. along with conscientious denizens who are looking keenly towards the world of the future and creating voices for local hand-made brands that are fair commerce at their core.

This Diwali, the overdressed, glitzy glam look has been carefully replaced with artisanal, hand-made, hand-tucked, and hand-embellished ensembles. Block printing tops this list. The free-flowing forms of the kaftan, the aabha kurtas, and the anarkalis worn with the chauda pyjamas take up every fashion diva's mind space.

At the royal ateliers, two brands ace this look. Rani Jaykirti Singh Baria's studio tops this genre. Her block prints spell a cerebral beauty that few can match. Her blocks are a piece of art, what with the designs getting carved on teak wood using special equipment. For all the different hues we see in her designs, different blocks are used. The outline of the lead block is called the "rekh". The block that fills the foreground is known as "datta". For the background or blotches, we use a block called "gadh". When something is created with such elaborate effort, the results can be nothing but exquisite.