Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

From flow­ing silk saris and in­tri­cate­ly em­broi­dered lehen­gas to colour­ful shal­war kameez and con­tem­po­rary de­sign­er out­fits, Di­vali fash­ion has be­come as much a cel­e­bra­tion of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty as an ex­pres­sion of per­son­al style.

Across Trinidad and To­ba­go, the an­nu­al Fes­ti­val of Lights trans­forms cloth­ing stores, tem­po­rary bou­tiques and ex­hi­bi­tion booths in­to show­cas­es of In­di­an crafts­man­ship, where cen­turies-old tra­di­tions meet mod­ern trends and a grow­ing ap­petite for ex­clu­sive de­sign­er wear.

At Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas, busi­ness­man Sandeep Ra­ja, known sim­ply as Ra­ja to many of his cus­tomers, is mak­ing a dis­tinc­tion be­tween in­ex­pen­sive fes­tive cloth­ing and the crafts­man­ship be­hind elab­o­rate tra­di­tion­al gar­ments.

He be­lieves that while shop­pers are in­creas­ing­ly con­scious of prices, the qual­i­ty of em­broi­dery, fab­ric and fin­ish­ing re­mains im­por­tant when se­lect­ing an out­fit for the re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tion.

Sur­round­ed by his col­lec­tion of im­port­ed In­di­an gar­ments, Ra­ja is un­apolo­getic about his ap­proach to busi­ness.

“We have al­ways liked the de­sign­er pieces,” he said, ex­plain­ing that his col­lec­tion fo­cus­es on qual­i­ty rather than in­ex­pen­sive, mass-pro­duced gar­ments.

The val­ue is in the de­tail

For Ra­ja, the dif­fer­ence is in the de­tails, from in­tri­cate em­broi­dery and care­ful­ly stitched em­bell­ish­ments to the se­lec­tion of fab­rics and over­all con­struc­tion.

His col­lec­tion, im­port­ed en­tire­ly from In­dia, fea­tures tra­di­tion­al and con­tem­po­rary de­signs, in­clud­ing elab­o­rate lehen­gas, shal­war kameez and sim­pler every­day pieces.

Prices range from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $200 to $300 for some gar­ments, while oth­er out­fits cost be­tween $300 and $400. At the high­er end, elab­o­rate lehen­gas can at­tract prices of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4,500.

How­ev­er, Ra­ja says the price alone does not tell the en­tire sto­ry.

Some cus­tomers ar­rive with pho­tographs of de­signs they have seen else­where, hop­ing to find some­thing sim­i­lar at a more af­ford­able price. He en­cour­ages them to ex­am­ine the ma­te­ri­als, work­man­ship and fin­ish­ing be­fore mak­ing a pur­chase.

“If they want in the qual­i­ty, just come in here,” he said.

For him, in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty is al­so im­por­tant. Rather than stock­ing large quan­ti­ties of iden­ti­cal out­fits, he prefers to of­fer se­lect­ed de­signs in lim­it­ed num­bers.

“We bring in the one-one pieces,” he ex­plained.

Cus­tomers pur­chas­ing elab­o­rate gar­ments, he be­lieves, of­ten want some­thing dis­tinc­tive rather than an out­fit avail­able at sev­er­al oth­er stores.

A her­itage wo­ven in­to fash­ion

In­di­an tra­di­tion­al cloth­ing has a long his­to­ry in Trinidad and To­ba­go, dat­ing back to the ar­rival of in­den­tured labour­ers on May 30, 1845, aboard the Fa­tel Raza­ck.

Along with their re­li­gious be­liefs, lan­guages, food and mu­sic, the im­mi­grants brought dis­tinc­tive cloth­ing tra­di­tions that would be­come en­dur­ing sym­bols of In­do-Trinida­di­an her­itage.

Among the gar­ments were the sari, dhoti, kur­ta, shal­war kameez and du­pat­ta, ac­com­pa­nied by var­i­ous styles of tra­di­tion­al jew­ellery.

For gen­er­a­tions, these gar­ments served prac­ti­cal, re­li­gious and cul­tur­al pur­pos­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing Hin­du ob­ser­vances, wed­dings and fam­i­ly cel­e­bra­tions.

The sari, one of the most recog­nis­able forms of In­di­an women’s cloth­ing, con­sists of a long, un­stitched length of fab­ric draped around the body, usu­al­ly ac­com­pa­nied by a fit­ted blouse.

The shal­war kameez com­bines a tu­nic with trousers and is of­ten com­plet­ed with a match­ing du­pat­ta, or scarf. The lehen­ga tra­di­tion­al­ly fea­tures a long skirt paired with a blouse and, fre­quent­ly, a du­pat­ta.

Its elab­o­rate­ly em­broi­dered vari­a­tions have be­come par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar for wed­dings and fes­tive oc­ca­sions.

For men, the kur­ta re­mains a fa­mil­iar choice, some­times com­ple­ment­ed by a Nehru-style jack­et or tra­di­tion­al trousers.

Over time, these gar­ments have evolved along­side Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety. Bol­ly­wood cin­e­ma, in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion trends and chang­ing con­sumer tastes have in­flu­enced the de­signs avail­able lo­cal­ly.

Mod­ern in­ter­pre­ta­tions in­cor­po­rate con­tem­po­rary cuts, dec­o­ra­tive bead­work, se­quins and metal­lic em­broi­dery, al­low­ing wear­ers to cel­e­brate their her­itage while em­brac­ing in­di­vid­ual style.

Bal­anc­ing qual­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty

De­spite the ap­peal of ex­clu­sive de­signs, Ra­ja ac­knowl­edges that elab­o­rate cloth­ing can rep­re­sent a sub­stan­tial in­vest­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly for fam­i­lies pur­chas­ing out­fits for sev­er­al mem­bers.

Shop­pers fre­quent­ly ask about prices and search for less ex­pen­sive al­ter­na­tives to de­sign­er pieces.

He be­lieves con­sumers should com­pare their op­tions care­ful­ly rather than make hur­ried pur­chas­es.

“Your mon­ey, you have to spend it,” he said, en­cour­ag­ing cus­tomers to ex­plore the ex­hi­bi­tion be­fore de­cid­ing.

His ad­vice re­flects a fa­mil­iar fes­tive-sea­son chal­lenge: bal­anc­ing af­ford­abil­i­ty, qual­i­ty and the de­sire to wear some­thing spe­cial.

For some fam­i­lies, Di­vali cloth­ing is pur­chased specif­i­cal­ly for the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion. Oth­ers choose gar­ments that can be worn again at wed­dings, re­li­gious func­tions, cul­tur­al events and fam­i­ly gath­er­ings.

The grow­ing va­ri­ety of styles has al­so ex­pand­ed the ap­peal of In­di­an fash­ion be­yond tra­di­tion­al re­li­gious oc­ca­sions.

The per­fect fit

Be­yond the em­broi­dery and elab­o­rate de­signs, Ra­ja says an­oth­er im­por­tant con­sid­er­a­tion is how well an out­fit fits.

Cus­tomers pur­chas­ing gar­ments at his Di­vali Na­gar booth can al­so ac­cess al­ter­ation ser­vices, an added con­ve­nience for those buy­ing im­port­ed ready-made cloth­ing.

De­pend­ing on the com­plex­i­ty of the ad­just­ment and the num­ber of cus­tomers, some al­ter­ations can be com­plet­ed in as lit­tle as five to ten min­utes.

Dur­ing the busy Di­vali shop­ping pe­ri­od, how­ev­er, wait­ing times can ex­tend from half an hour to an hour.

Ra­ja says the ad­di­tion­al time is nec­es­sary to en­sure gar­ments are prop­er­ly ad­just­ed and fin­ished.

“If you give him the pa­tience, he will do neat and nice,” he said.

The ser­vice is par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful be­cause siz­ing and fit can dif­fer from what lo­cal shop­pers are ac­cus­tomed to wear­ing.

A mi­nor ad­just­ment to the waist, hem­line or sleeve can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence to an out­fit’s ap­pear­ance and com­fort. For elab­o­rate gar­ments fea­tur­ing em­broi­dery and dec­o­ra­tive em­bell­ish­ments, care­ful han­dling is al­so nec­es­sary to pre­serve the orig­i­nal de­sign.

Cus­tomers can gen­er­al­ly have al­ter­ations com­plet­ed on the same day, al­though Ra­ja en­cour­ages pa­tience dur­ing the peak shop­ping pe­ri­od.

A cul­tur­al and com­mer­cial show­case

Es­tab­lished in 1986 by the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture, Di­vali Na­gar has grown in­to one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ma­jor cul­tur­al show­cas­es.

What be­gan at the Mid Cen­tre Mall car park in Ch­agua­nas even­tu­al­ly moved to its per­ma­nent home at Narsa­loo Ra­maya Marg.

To­day, the an­nu­al event brings to­geth­er cul­tur­al per­for­mances, re­li­gious dis­plays, tra­di­tion­al foods, hand­i­crafts and com­mer­cial ex­hi­bi­tions.

Fash­ion has be­come an in­creas­ing­ly vis­i­ble part of that ex­pe­ri­ence.

For vis­i­tors, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­am­ine fab­rics, com­pare de­signs and pur­chase tra­di­tion­al gar­ments pro­vides a con­nec­tion to In­di­an cul­ture that ex­tends be­yond the re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tion it­self.

It al­so cre­ates com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­tail­ers and im­porters who de­pend on sea­son­al de­mand in the weeks lead­ing up to Di­vali.

This year’s fes­ti­val, ob­served on Sun­day, No­vem­ber 8, con­tin­ues a tra­di­tion in which the light­ing of deyas sym­bol­is­es the tri­umph of light over dark­ness and good over evil.

For Hin­du fam­i­lies, the cel­e­bra­tion car­ries deep spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance, en­com­pass­ing prayers, veg­e­tar­i­an meals, the shar­ing of sweets and the light­ing of homes and com­mu­ni­ties.

The wear­ing of new or care­ful­ly se­lect­ed tra­di­tion­al cloth­ing adds an­oth­er di­men­sion to those prepa­ra­tions, re­flect­ing the spir­it of re­new­al and cel­e­bra­tion.

While fash­ion trends will con­tin­ue to change, these gar­ments re­main an im­por­tant ex­pres­sion of cul­tur­al con­ti­nu­ity.

For Ra­ja, how­ev­er, the mes­sage to shop­pers re­mains prac­ti­cal: whether pur­chas­ing an af­ford­able shal­war kameez or in­vest­ing thou­sands of dol­lars in a de­sign­er lehen­ga, cus­tomers should un­der­stand what they are buy­ing.

He en­cour­ages vis­i­tors to ex­plore the dif­fer­ent booths, com­pare prices and ex­am­ine the qual­i­ty be­fore mak­ing their fi­nal de­ci­sion.