Right after graduating from school, I went to Singapore to study. My sister had just gotten engaged and was going to get married at the end of my first semester. As a result, I just wasn’t able to be a part of any of the shaadi planning or the shopping. And this included shopping for the clothes I was going to wear at the wedding too!
Anyway, as soon as I got back, it was all about fittings and stitchings. I remember actually standing in the boutique, on the masterji’s head, demanding for him to alter the blouse I was suppose to wear for the sangeet – on the day of the sangeet! So you get the picture, right? Everything was very last minute for me.
Once the sangeet was over, I went back for the shaadi day blouse, again, on the day of the shaadi!
This time, the blouse was a strapless corset made out of a material that had gold sequins stitched all over. Since there was a dori at the back to tighten it, I was sure it would fit so I didn’t bother trying it and headed straight to the parlour to get ready. Little did I know what a big blouse stitching mistake this was!
Once I wore the blouse there, I felt a bit uncomfortable. Like I was being poked in many places. But anyway, with a million other things still to do, I put it out of my mind.
And you know how weddings are, right? Especially for the sister of the bride! I barely had a second to myself, and by the end of the night I was just working on auto-pilot. Smile, say namaste, ask people to eat something, etc, etc.
Finally, when I got home I realised I was actually in a lot of pain. My friends were all there so I went to the other room and asked my mom to help me get out of the blouse. That was a bit tough though. The tailor had left the sequinned part of the cloth exposed at the seams. So basically, every time I moved, twisted or danced, the sequins would chafe against my skin too. You can probably imagine how bad that must have been in a tight corset blouse. I had bruises all along my torso and I literally had to live in oversized sweatshirts for the rest of the month to heal and not hurt anymore.
And that’s the lesson I learnt the hard way – never say no to a trial. And don’t think the tailor knows what he’s doing and trust him completely! As a fashion design student myself, I should have inspected the stitching carefully and tried to figure out a way around the problem right then and there. Oh, well! At least, I’m never going to take these things for granted again!
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