Parsi gara saris, ruby rings and diamond watches: Inside heirlooms worn by Mumbai’s best-dressed crowd
“Post-participation, my grandparents moved to Shimla, and they had to leave everything to Lahore. This necklace is one of the first pieces that my grandmother could afford to buy for my mother’s marriage. For me, it is a memory that she transmitted,” says Tanya Vohra Ahuja. Vogue India. While she talks, her fingers are based on a pendant in Floral Polki, located in a 22 km gold base. The heritage pieces often carry stories with them, and as they are transmitted through generations, they keep these stories alive. And with each story, they keep an entire culture alive.
As a prelude to the vogue wedding workshop presented by HSBC, Rochelle Pinto, responsible for editorial content at Vogue India welcomed the editor’s tea to the modernist, at the Four Seasons hotel in Mumbai. Surrounded by a dynamic mixture of creative leaders and fashion aficionados, the conversation has passed slowly to the inheritances.
Inheritances are a living record of the regional heritage. Whether it is the complex and floral embroidery of Parsi Gara, which flowed through the Sari of Maia Sethna, or the work of the Rajasthani Meenakari strike on the wedding necklace of Anuja Joshi, the passage of the heirs ensures cultural continuity. These antiques can become a chronology of lived experiences, as for Mitali Sagar Patel, whose emerald necklace was the culmination of the efforts of his father and his grandfather. They collected Colombian emeralds during the decades, until they have the perfect ones to make the necklace.
The inheritances contain their carriers an inheritance. By transporting them, we organize our ancestral history and show our family traditions. In front, the best dressed people in Mumbai Vogue India about their precious inheritances.
All photos: Vijit Gupta
Assisted by: Shivam Gupta
Natasha Luthra
