LEFT: Live demonstration at fabric embroidery pop up shop at The Gate Mall recently. Prominent Indian designer Pallavi Jaipur speaks to reporters at a recent media event at Mondrian Doha. PIC: Raynald C Rivera / The Peninsula
DOHA: Bollywood-themed pop-up shops showcasing various crafts of India, are generating much interest among visitors in malls participating in the ongoing Shop Qatar 2018 festival. The pop-up shops which rotate around the 13 participating malls show live demonstrations of popular traditional Indian crafts such as fabric embroidery, bangles, cushion embroidery, and footwear making.
“We brought hand embroidery craftsmen to hold live demonstration showing how we bring those elaborate and luxurious embroideries on garments, scarves and bags,” famous Indian designer Pallavi Jaipur recently told reporters, adding visitors can also purchase some items they brought especially for the festival.
“We got some handy products to sell like scarves, garments and bags which bear the unique embroidery techniques of the skilled craftsmen,” said Pallavi, who comes from a heritage-rich background hailing from the capital city of Rajasthan known as the city of royals.
She expressed gratitude to organizers Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) for providing the platform to showcase India’s age-old crafts during the Bollywood Week.
“It’s a great privilege and honour to share the skill and the craft of artisans, bringing in together and showing what these art forms are. It is also a way of reviving a dying art, which represents age-old technique of India as well which takes a lot of painstaking challenge for all the craftsmen as it’s their source of livelihood,” she explained.
Pallavi was one of the six Indian designers whose creations were showcased at the Bollywood Fashion Show yesterday night at Mondrian Doha. Twelve of her unique designs were applauded on the runway by the audience at the show.
The pieces were distinct among the other designs in the use of rich fabrics such as chiffon, velvet and silk and were luxuriously embroidered, flaunty, feminine and beautiful
“Everything that you see on the ramp that looks luxurious and beautiful is because of the craftsmen. Having given the platform to showcase their skill is an opportunity for them to feel appreciated and take great pride in it. They are absolutely honoured so are we,” she said.
On the parallelism between Arab and Indian fashion, she said: “There is some kind of similarity between Arab and Indian fashion. They are kind of tied together in terms of tradition and culture. We celebrate our weddings with pomp and gaiety in the same way with Arabs.”
The fashion show and pop-up shops are just some of the events and activities QTA has lined up for Bollywood Week which has received huge response from the public. Hundreds of fans of Bollywood singing sensation Sonu Nigam are expected to throng his concert tomorrow at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center.
