An Indian Summer

ANITA DONGRE’s new store in SoHo is a coming together of contemporary and traditional Indian fashion, with a living, beating heart at the centre of it all, finds PARIZAAD KHAN SETHI. Vogue gets three Indian women to show how they translate modern Indianwear into their Big Apple lives.

On an evening in May, visitors to Soho, Manhattan’s buzziest shopping district, would have come across the heady fragrance of jasmine blooms and heard the dramatic percussion of tablas. Anita Dongre, arguably India’s most successful designer, was throwing open the doors to her brand-new store. The two-storey space is home to several of the house’s lines, including bridal and occasion wear, ready-to-wear and jewellery, as well as Grassroot, the Indian contemporary line with a social conscience. 

“Brides of Indian origin living in the US used to travel all the way to India for their trousseaus, making multiple trips to select outfits and conduct fittings. We had several brides at our Indian stores, and the feedback we got from them was partly why it occurred to us that we should have a presence in the US,” says Dongre about this bold move Stateside. With busy careers and an annual holiday allowance that only extends to three weeks, it’s understandable, Dongre says, that brides want those precious days to be spent on the wedding and honeymoon instead of schlepping across continents to ensure their choli fits just so.

Till Dongre’s store opening, brides (and grooms) looking for Indian designer wedding wear had to rely on a couple of stores and websites that offered a random selection from a handful of designers. “Those stores would buy from a few Indian designers but they never carry the latest collections. A buyer can come and buy three or four lehengas from us and put it in a multi-designer store, but it’s not the experience that our own store offers,” Dongre says.