She dons her hats with ease. This could explain why Twinkle Tom, once an environment engineer in Singapore, is now happy to dress up brides in her designer gowns.
Owner of D’Aisle, an exclusive designer wedding gowns boutique, Twinkle opens up on the craze for gowns and the shift in designs and also how she got the gown enterprise going.
Today’s bride knows her mind when it comes to her wedding attire. No dithering, no dilemma. The preference is for gowns. No more tussar, silk or kasavu saris. The gown seems to have settled in, in all resplendent glory, with long trains sweeping the aisle.
It’s every woman’s dream and right to look stunning on D-Day, for that fairytale moment when she walks down the aisle in all her finery. If dreams were once woven in saris, they have now moved on to gowns. This trend is just about catching on in Kerala with Christian brides willing to spend hours to slip in and out of the right wedding gown measurements.
The whites have always been in vogue, be they in satin, silk, lace or embroidery. But like all fashions switches, there’s a definite slant for pastel shades. Doing justice to all such shades is Twinkle Tom’s D’Aisle.
“I’m no designer,” says the lady. Everything happened by chance, she hastens to add. She was in Singapore for close to eight years where she did her Masters. She got married in 2011, though preparations for her special day got going a year before the event. It was a typical naval wedding as Twinkle got married to an officer in the Indian Navy. “He wore his uniform, and I, my gown,” she says. She remembers a lot of elders frowning at the concept of gown, because to most of them a gown meant a frock tied back with a sash. There weren’t too many options before her, either. The gown trend had not set in. Hence, the best bet was to get one ready from Singapore. That’s how Twinkle got acquainted with a readymade unit there.
Marriage over, she settled down in Kerala. Back in Singapore, Twinkle had been working as an environmental scientist with the Water Authority there. Getting the same sort of job here would be next to impossible, she realized. Left with no better options, she gave a thought to the gown enterprise. The rest, as they say is history.
The sari and the gown are two incomparable entities. There are absolutely no similarities between the two. As the sari is an attire which drapes well, it seductively wraps the wearer, highlighting the shape of her body. The gown is an entire character altogether. The shape of the wearer matters a lot, as it tends to flow around the body and balloon out.
When Twinkle started work, she had only small to medium-built girls coming in for gowns. Right now, from chubby to size plus-one, the takers are aplenty for gowns. But the allure of the gown lies in the way it’s stitched to hug the body. One does not need to be size zero to look divine in a gown.
Twinkle has a lot of merry memories around her tryst with gowns. The early days saw girls longing to slip into one, with the parents dead against such an idea. The times have swerved to a sharp change with parents and at times even the groom prodding the heavier types to shun the sari and go for the gown.
What’s more surprising is that when a flowery-fine, fairytale wedding in gown was a predominantly Christian concept, it is now swaying Muslim style trends. There are gowns now for Muslim brides, worked to their specifications and customs. The designer in Twinkle beams at how fashion can bring about changes to age-old traditions.
D’Aisle is an exclusive wedding gowns isle. To begin with, they were everything in white, but the sky has changed and pastels are in. That’s why the focus is now on the light and the serene. Though there are boutiques at every turn, D’Aisle’s decision to specialize in gowns has made it a much sought after wedding destination. While the Kochi boutique is in Ravipuram, the Thiruvananthapuram outlet is in Mannanthala.
White is the first color that pops up when a wedding is fixed, though the bright hues are taken for engagements and receptions. All said and done, though pastels are creeping in, white’s still the popular choice.
The light pink, the light blue and the light yellow have come in. But girls would rather go with variations of pink. Though ivory and champagne are hits in their rights, the pretty pink has been a recent entry.
D’Aisle has ready to wear gowns. Orders are also accepted. Though the common style was to have silver stone work on white material, stones of different hues are in demand now. As the church would have the bride decked up in subdued shades, good designers handle this by coloring up pastel shades with multi-colored stones and making each gown look like a true designer piece.
The wedding scenario had undergone a sea change in the last decade. Theme weddings have come in and hence, there’s a lot of stress on wedding photography too. And the main motif of wedding pictures is the wedding dress. Twinkle remembers how tough it was in 2011, to enlighten her relatives about the merits of candid photography.
Today, the place is swarming with extremely talented, aesthetic and imaginative photographers. So in so many ways, Kerala is an ideal wedding destination and those abroad can be treated to the best trends in technology and fashion here. The options are countless. We have become world-class, says Twinkle.
With weddings moving into the realm of fancy themes and concepts, the demand for gowns will surely go up. Colors will change and designs too. Gearing up to face all these challenges is an environment engineer turned wedding wear designer.
