This year’s PLBW determined some concrete trends in wedding wear, without which your festive wardrobe will be incomplete.
Winter is around the corner and with it comes one of Pakistan’s longest spells – the wedding season. Preceding this, and now better timed than ever before for December/January bridals,
is the L’Oréal Paris Bridal Week (PLBW). For those who want to make a splash with their sartorial choices this wedding season, try the trends that emerged strongest on the ramp.
Black queen
Generally, wedding collections eschew black bridals because designers claim to not get orders on them. For weddings and other celebrations, brighter colours are considered more favourable so when a designer puts forth a few black numbers it’s as much a statement as it is daring. This year, a number of designers put forward blacks and greys, with Nomi Ansari blending in colour with signature wizardry, Misha Lakhani working with her signature silhouettes and Ali Xeeshan playing with print and monochrome designs.
Statement sleeves
Who said you can’t go big and flouncy on the sleeves and still look wedding appropriate? No one. The bigger, the better. Three veteran designers, among others, experimented with their versions of big sleeves at PLBW using frills and this got us all excited for all the different possibilities with the silhouette. HSY, The House of Kamiar Rokni and Faraz Manan all proved that the impact of this trend is flattering, feminine and easy to pull off!
Must-have: sari
The classic silhouette was once again shown in so many different ways. Jacket on sari at Saira Shakira, belted sari with a short jacket at Hira Ali, A-line frill sari at Misha Lakhani and then a more classic white sari with a statement bow blouse at Ali Xeeshan. Faraz Manan presented a hybrid version of a sari that could worked beyond the tradition realm. Each designer did their own version of it and each of them worked.
Playing with print
Hussain Rehar was the only one to really take this trend forward but he played around with print and added mirrorwork, marori and dabka to it to give it a fresh update. We may be voting for solids in everyday wear but are ready to transfer our love for print to the bridal domain. Bridals infused with floral prints will always remind us of Sabyasachi but Hussain made the trend his own entirely!
Urban dhoti
This is not a particularly new silhouette but one that’s been seen more often recently. Given how easy it looks to carry, we predict that it’s going to be seen a lot this coming season. The House of Kamiar Rokni’s version was structured at the top and shorter on the bottom in a contrasting black. Misha Lakhani did one with a matching bandeau top and bottom whereas Saira Shakira featured their signature sleeveless blazers along with a dhoti-esque lower.
– Photography by Faisal Farooqui and his team at Dragonfly
