"The remiscience of medieval indian fashion".

You must have watched and appreciated the Bollywood's biggest and most controversial movie ever made - 'PADMAVAT'. Did you like its 'Larger than life' clothing? Do you know who and how they made it?

         Designers Rimple and Harpreet took the world by storm by their designs used in Padmavat

Delhi based Rimple and Harpreet had designed Rani Padmavati's costume after considerable research on medieval indian culture. They basically used traditional "Gota" embroidery work of Rajasthan. A lot of techniques have gone into creating the detailed looks that are reminiscent of the era. Padukone's dresses were made with "Sinhalese" influences as the character of Padmavati hailed from Sri Lanka. The looks that were created in this movie were adhered to the Indian culture and showed vividly how one could look so beautiful and elegant in such traditional outfits.

Some special types of Ancient traditional designs that have been used in these dresses are-
(a) Mukke-ka-kaam - Embroidery of Rajasthan
      It is a type of embroidery in Rajasthan, which consists of extensively used gold and silver threads       to make the fabric even more attractive. The gold and silver metal threads are known as "Mukke-       ka-kaam" that produces stunning embroideries, used in Rajasthan. The artisans of Rajasthan               sketched the design of "Mukke-ka-kaam" on the cloth and used a block thread to fill in the                   outlines.
(b) Raato -
      Traditional embroideries such as "Mukke-ka-kaam", along with red thread edging is known as             "Raato", while silver "Mukke-ka-kaam" with blue thread edging is called "Dhaula".

"For the ornate court look for Deepika, we tried to achieve a vintage and aged effect by mixing both "Raato" and "Dhaula". They dominantly used motifs like lotus, parrot, peacock and the sun."-

(c) Block Painting -
      The design teams got special blocks developed from Sanganer and Bagru for the block printing.
      Some prints have upto 24 different colours in one motif and/or many blocks had to be created to           achieve the effect. The block prints were further detailed with hand paintings and embroideries.

"The prints were then layered with "Gotta" work for which specially sourced "Badla" wires that were given to weavers to create authentic "Gotta"."-

The authentic "Gotta" has high percentage of copper, which was further electroplated to achieve a gold finish and then oxidized to age. The designers did not want to use the modern day plastic wire "Gota" that is readily available in the market.

                               So...Unleash the traditional diva in you and try out the looks....

Article by - Akanksha Jha