Wedding bells and shopping blues

HYDERABAD: Says Aanal Mehta, exhibition co-ordinator, “This is to give women a chance to go through styles from different places which they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. We’ve brought in stores and designers from places like Jaipur, Mumbai, Delhi besides Hyderabad.” The stores are chosen by a panel from the magazine and are then invited to hold stalls during the exhibition.Though primarily the stalls host clothes stores including designer wear, there is also jewellery, wedding cards, accessories, wedding gifts and even a choreographer for the sangeet programme for your wedding! While the list sounds snazzy, so are the prices! The exhibition isn’t for the faint-hearted and definitely not for the faint-walleted.The displays are high-end and so are the customers. Interestingly, however, is the fact that some shops are using the exhibition as a testing ground. Designers who sold their merchandise through non-retail have come to the exhibition to directly interact with their customers. Says Shrenik Mehta of Mumbai-based Kinerhs Collection, “We’ve never really been in direct contact with the customers. So this is a trial for us.”El’Unique, a silverware store from Delhi, is another store that is testing new waters. An exclusive designer store that manufactures silverware, this is their first foray down south.Bhavana, marketing head of El’Unique, says, “We have been in business for fifteen years and have done well for ourselves. But we’re trying to explore the market elsewhere. So this is one of our first ventures out of Delhi.” Fusion, a store in Bangalore, is part of an exhibition of this sort for the first time. Manjunath, the designer says, “I usually sell my clothes at the flea market in Goa for half of the year. My designs are very bohemian and tribal-like.” But to be part of a marriage exhibition is an interesting experience for him.Speaking of the organisers however, he is quite happy. “There is usually a lot of confusion at exhibitions of this size. And organisers are ususally fussy about alloted spaces. But things are pretty flexible and organised over here.”