Reet or Laleh: choosing between embroidery and handwork

Two of the five collections in the studio are built for occasions, and people often ask which one they should be looking at. The honest answer depends less on budget than on what the event asks of you.

Reet is embroidery

Fifteen pieces in silk, organza and golden tissue, worked with resham, cutdana and pearl. Lehenga sets and kurta sets both. The embroidery is the point — it catches light, it reads from across a room, and it carries a mehendi or a haldi without needing a wedding behind it.

The range inside Reet is wide on purpose. The same hands work a light kurta set and a full bridal lehenga, which means the collection dresses a guest and a sister of the bride equally well without either feeling out of place.

Laleh is handwork

Seventeen lehenga sets, and the bridal heart of the studio. Golden and silver zardosi, sequins, patch work, floral threadwork — carried across blouse, dupatta and skirt rather than concentrated in one panel. These take the longest to make and are the most often altered to measurement.

If you are dressing for your own wedding, Laleh is where to begin. If you are dressing for someone else’s, Reet usually is.

A third answer

If the occasion is smaller than either — a sangeet at home, a puja, an engagement lunch — look at Gul Posh instead. Eleven pieces in silk and crepe where the pleat does the work and the handwork stays at the yoke and neckline. Quieter, and easier to wear more than once.