A bride should look like a bride: Rohit Bal

A purist at heart, Rohit Bal believes that a bride should look like one. So, when it comes to picking the right colour for the lehenga, he rejects those powdery blues and neon greens, at least for the pheras.

Bal says that brides look resplendent in colours that celebrate the sanctity of the rituals. “I am a traditionalist. I am a classic designer. I would prefer my bride to look classic. I would like her to wear a red lehenga or maybe red teamed with cream and ivory, and not those faded blues and lime greens. Brides wearing anything in the name of ‘trendy’, is a no no for me,” says Bal, who is recuperating well after being discharged from the hospital recently where he was admitted for pancreatitis treatment.

We caught up with the designer over some green tea at his studio in Defence Colony.

‘CULTURE CAN NEVER BE OUTDATED’

Bal wants brides to draw inspiration from the beautiful age-old customs of the Indian subcontinent rather than ape what’s trending. “We have such stunning bridal costumes. They are a part of our rich cultural heritage, whether it’s the Hyderabadi gharara or the Kashmiri phiran. You can borrow from our diversity. Culture can never be outdated. Mix and match whatever you like, but the aesthetics should belong to the subcontinent,” says the veteran designer known for his larger-than-life, spellbinding shows.

As he inquisitively watches his team attend to grooms-to-be trying out embroidered ivory sherwanis in his studio, an exuberant foreigner with his Indian fiancée included, he tells us, “We have a women’s store next door. So, we have men and women coming in and interacting with us in both the stores. Women are always very curious and they want to know what their fiancé, brother or father are going to wear.”

Bal is happy that brides and grooms now independently decide what to wear. “They come together to order their clothes sans the buas and the chachis. Earlier, the entire family would arrive. The couple know exactly what they want and they will go for it, no matter what the bua ji thinks,” says the designer.

‘INDIAN MEN DON’T CARE ABOUT SHOES’

While Bal is happy that Indian men are gradually making fearless fashion choices, he detests their footwear. “Ill-thought out footwear spoils the look. Indian men wear horrendous footwear. While the women have become smart, men still haven’t understood how important it is to wear the right pair of shoes,” says Bal.

RECLAIMING DENIM

During the pandemic, we swapped our denim with comfy pyjamas and the lethargy is taking a while to leave us. Bal says it will be great to see people wear jeans more often once again. “The incredible thing about jeans is that you can wear it with anything, anytime, anywhere. It’s a universally accepted form of fashion. It’s the versatility of jeans that kills it. If you have a few nice pairs of jeans, you’re sorted for the season,” says Bal, who launched the label Alexander Jeans by Rohit Bal two years ago, in partnership with Lalit Tehlan. “It was a project brought to me by Lalit. He gave it to me as a present. He has some fabulous ideas. We are taking denim very, very seriously. We have included almost all kinds of looks in denim, right from embroidered to pop coloured. We are soon launching a line for women as well. There are beads and sequins; it’s quite crazy,” he adds.

‘DENIM-ON-DENIM IS A DISASTER!’

Being a denim loyalist, what does Bal think of the denim-on-denim trend? Once labelled cringe, the trend has infiltrated celebrity closets, who make us wonder if it’s cute. For Bal, it’s a downright disaster. “Why do want to do an overkill? There are so many ways to wear denim: Keep it classic and wear it with a crisp white shirt. Or make it fun with a coloured T-shirt. Another piece of denim is the last thing you want to pair it with,” he says.

‘OTT DRESSING CAN BACKFIRE IF NOT DONE RIGHT’

Bal also doesn’t like an overkill of fashion. “One shouldn’t just pile on everything. People go on layering in the name of OTT fashion. This should not be happening in India, a tropical country, where you need to wear light, breathable fabric and let a single piece of jewellery or accessory stand out,” says Bal.

While OTT is trending, it should be done tastefully, he believes. “OTT has to be done in the right way, else it can be dangerous,” says Bal.

He is not a fan of ‘stunt dressing’ either — when you intentionally dress up in an eccentric manner to shock and amaze, right from makeup mogul Kylie Jenner turning up at the Paris Fashion Week with a faux lion head pinned to her gown for the Schiaparelli show to singer Lil Nas X covering himself in silver body paint and crystals for the Met Gala. “I don’t get this weird role that fashion is playing. Fashion is a thing of beauty… And there is a universally accepted concept of beauty, not something that only a few people will find beautiful. I think that’s an incredible achievement of fashion. That role is also very influential. It influences people’s lives, their work, their interactions with their society. Fashion fails its purpose if it becomes a medium to appal and confuse,” he says.

Bal, who has not done a full-fledged fashion show in many years, shares that he will return with a grand show soon. “I will do it soon. I’ve done so many shows in my life, presenting some 200 garments in one show. I have done this for 35 years, and it’s not like kapde bana ke ramp par daal diye. My show has to be grand, I have to go all out,” says the designer. We can hardly wait.