The great grooming: It is time for men to step into the limelight

Indian couturiers are creating a new aesthetic for the modern groom. It's time to go on a sartorial treasure hunt

The Indian man went for “smart” in suits, “cool” in casuals and “simple” in traditional wear. There was a classic look for every occasion, which, he was repeatedly told, made him the “complete man”. Enduring stereotypes kept him from experimenting. Then he found the courage to borrow from a woman’s closet — that repository of all things beautiful. What started, perhaps, with an innocuous scarf has turned his wardrobe upside down. Prints, florals, drapes and layers have all arrived. Just in time for the wedding season.

Globally, menswear is in sharp focus. LVHM’s venerable couture brand, Celine, recently launched its first menswear collection in 74 years. French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus launched one too. As did celeb favourite, Nepali-American designer Prabal Gurung. At home, last year’s Woolmark Prize winner, Ruchika Sachdeva of Bodice, has entered menswear and so has Payal Singhal, a women’s couturier of 20 years. Falguni and Shane Peacock have introduced a flamboyant, menswear collection, Louche. “Clothing styles are only going to get more inclusive,” says designer Amit Aggarwal, who took the plunge into menswear last year. 

Oh, and Euromonitor International estimates menswear lines will overtake women’s by 2022. What an exciting time to be a man.

A textured bandi paired with fitted trousers from Kunal Rawal

The recently concluded Lakme Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2019 hinted at the future. From Manish Malhotra’s opening act to Kunal Rawal, the five-day festival in Mumbai saw not just decadent menswear collections but also more gender-agnostic and sustainable pieces. On the day dedicated to sustainable wear, Aggarwal had cricketer Hardik Pandya and actor Lisa Hayden walk the ramp in Reliance’s RElan Fabric 2.0 made of recycled plastic bottles. Woolmark Prize winner Ujjawal Dubey created ensembles with khadi, cotton and elastene that introduced a new geometry to traditional Indian wear. 

“Post-contemporary clothing is neatly tailored in light fabrics for men who are both rooted and forward-looking,” says Dubey. His label, Antar-Agni, stands for the kind of sustainability and minimalism that can start a revolution, or fuel one, as Rajesh Pratap Singh did 20 years ago. 

A front draped kurta with trousers from Ujjawal Dubey’s label Antar-Agni

Despite the rise and shine of menswear, there are few offline multi-designer stores in the country that grooms-to-be can browse through. Curato, which opened last year in Mumbai, is the only multi-designer store in the country exclusive to men. Designer Tarun Tahiliani and his sister Tina Tahiliani Parikh’s Ensemble, also a multi-designer store, has dedicated spaces for men’s occasion-wear in Mumbai, but not in Delhi. Aza is exclusively for women, except for a few pieces from Antar-Agni, as is Ogaan.

Grooms-to-be and your mates, pay attention. Our approach to wedding wear has to be markedly different from that of women. But since weddings happen to be a shared project, I have been doing some homework. I have been given a colour. It’s neither peach nor pink. My fiancée’s designer lehenga has a velvet base, which gives it a different hue. But I am sticking to peach, for clarity’s sake. I have been given instructions: to find an outfit that complements (read match) the colour. So I approached some of India’s best couturiers for advice.

I sat with Nikhil Mehra, one half of Shantanu & Nikhil, popular cocktail-sangeet specialists. Mehra agrees that it starts with some online research. “It gives you an idea about designers who match your design sensibilities,” he says. Browse through their designs online but do not order anything. That’s for repeat customers. Take an appointment instead. Couture is nothing if not sound advice and excellent tailoring.

Designer duo Shantanu & Nikhil with embroidered sherwanis from their new collection

Your research should tell you that classic cuts, such as sherwanis and bandhgalas, deep-rooted in North Indian sartorial tradition, are still in vogue. Shantanu & Nikhil’s latest collection has turned them into the modern man’s statement clothing. Expect hand embroidery on raw silk that tells Panchatantra tales in dazzling colours: bright pink, blooming yellow, rich emerald, striking blue. In a market dominated by muted tones, the Raj-Kumari collection is a bold anti-trend. And yet, the suggestion I receive is to wear a beige sherwani paired with a tonal draped kurta topped with a peach dupatta. It’s to do with my hamstrung situation with colours. Mehra says that the individual personalities of the bride and groom should take precedence over coordinated clothing. When they have a choice, that is.

“For the wedding day, it’s definitely a sherwani,” says Mehra. The length is shorter this season, which highlights the draped kurta underneath. Should the sherwani be printed, embroidered or quilted? “First scan your wardrobe to understand the kind of clothes you tend to prefer. If you happen to have just one brightly coloured, embroidered or printed shirt that you don’t often wear, more elaborate stuff is not your style,” says Mehra. 

He suggests a dark bandhgala with subtle embroidery and a metallic brooch instead of a pocket square, paired with fitted pants for the cocktail. Apart from going big on brooches, the label has also started designing hand-made shoes to go with the outfits. “Men want all the solutions under one roof. That’s not lazy, that’s efficient,” he grins. 

My next stop was Tarun Tahiliani. Who better to run your new ideas past than one who has been in the industry pretty much since its birth? He rues the day traditional Indian clothing stopped evolving. “At weddings, people tend to go from a strange westernisation to a strange Bollywoodisation to strange costumes of royal India,” he says. “Buttons are elegant, but the damn necklaces!”

Our inadequacy in choosing the right clothes for weddings stems from the fact that Indian wear is hardly worn without an occasion. “Indian men go to couturiers only for a festival or a wedding. They go to westernwear designers for everything else,” says Tahiliani. 

“A bandi (waistcoat) with trousers is acceptable for the fanciest of galas. I live by that principle,” he says. Safas (turbans) came and went, drapes have come back and it’s a good thing that women still help with the decision making, he tells me. “A man could come and say royal lagna chahiye (I should look royal). Arre! Royal is how you speak and carry yourself,” he rolls his eyes. 

"A man could come and say royal lagna chahiye (I should look royal). Arre! Royal is how you carry yourself," says Tarun Tahiliani, fashion designer

People mix and match a lot of things, he says, and we discuss Ranveer Singh’s sartorial flamboyance. “He can carry it off, but understated men look super elegant, too,” says Tahiliani. He feels a tailored achkan in fine fabric with a convenient dhoti (one with a fly) is how a classy modern man would wear to “dress up”, not “gold jackets” with “ghastly” peacock prints. 

“Some of the most beautifully dressed women wear handloom and have never met a designer. Similarly, men can’t go wrong with kurta, churidar and a bandi. Just wear something that feels nice and easy,” he says.

So at Tahiliani, the classic jacket stays but with nuances in the form of draped or pleated kurtas, printed or plain in new shades such as peach and orange. Coloured and even printed churidars are seeing a revival. At the stores you can find a kurta set for Rs 30,000 or sleeveless sherwani sets starting at Rs 40,000. Go through the catalogue and seek an appointment with the man himself if you want something more elaborate.

If I have learned anything from my tête-à-tête with these ace designers, it’s that good taste does not necessarily mean elaborate. Thus, I head to a menswear label whose legacy designs speak for its understated elegance. The bandhgala is synonymous with Raghavendra Rathore. “Traditionally worn with all the buttons done up, it is now styled by wearing a shirt inside and leaving the top two buttons undone. The outfit also takes on various forms with minimalistic embroidery and embellishments,” says Rathore. Bandhgalas, textured or embroidered achkans, kurtas and dinner jackets are RR staples. They can be worn with straight pants or Jodhpuris. The brand’s entire focus is on bespoke, made-to-fit clothing, garments that can be reused and also passed on.

“Wedding wear is a mix of pastel, vibrant and dark jewel tones. The choice of colours has to be thought through based on the time of day, the setting and one’s personality,” says Rathore. Italian fabric in blacks, browns, whites and greys hang alongside deep reds and blues in velvet at his store at DLF Emporio mall in Delhi. They can do peach, I checked. Just don’t ask for pink. 

But ask Kunal Rawal for any colour, style or fit you can think of. He is a master of manipulating fabrics and cheating silhouettes. His exclusive menswear stores in Delhi and Mumbai, fitted with movable hydraulic racks that Bollywood regularly chooses from, is an amusement park for anyone with a vivid imagination. My picks are the three-piece sherwanis, which is bandi and an open jacket in one piece, paired with a kurta and fitted trousers, and the deconstructed sherwanis, which is a kurta and a bandi that emulates a sherwani without adding an extra layer. Dance all you want in this stuff. They come with a dry-fit athleisure lining.

“I think the guy who comes to us wants a traditional silhouette tweaked to be more functional and versatile,” says Rawal, who can be seen strolling about at fashion events in open sherwanis paired with denims. This year he is experimenting with hand-embroidered sola prints on in-house cotton silk, which make photochromic pieces that change from white to maybe a hot pink or a bright yellow in the sun. If that’s not having fun at your wedding, I don’t know what is. You can find a kurta-bandi set for Rs 50,000 and a sherwani with more detailing for up to Rs 3 lakh. 

So did I find the peach that I was looking for? I found more than I can afford or wear. I think I am beginning to understand what complement (and not match) means. Like Rathore says, the bride and groom should not look like each other’s clones. It’s about finding your place among equals.