Yesterday evening Monica Shah & Karishma Swali of JADE hosted a little champagne soiree to announce the arrival of their boutique on Peddar Road, Mumbai (although I feel like I’ve seen it around for a while so didn’t realise it was new) and smiled most in the presence of significant celebrity (in this case Twinkle Khanna.) On offer – a summer collection of gossamer flowy chiffon dresses, tops, spring jackets and a range of separates in pastels and nude with “refined detailing and construction.” Deepti Gujral and Candice Pinto posed and preened in elegant bridal wear (they seemed grumpy but gorgeous.)
The glitterati showed up in support (in fact many of them in JADE designs, kinda gaurantees press coverage you know.) Spotted: (monochromatic and matching) Aarti Surendranath, Bijal Meswani, Superna Motwane, Amrit Maghera, Farida Udhas (wife of Pankaj Udhas) walked in with her daughter, Pinky Reddy, Gayatri Ruia, Namrata Barauh with husband Vikram Shroff, Radhika Ruia (wearing JADE creation), Bonita Bulchandani (wearing JADE creation), Anju Taraporewalla (wearing JADE creation), Ninotchka Nagpal (wearing JADE creation) and Shibani Suri. The first wives club Sonali Bendre, Twinkle Khanna and Gayatri Joshi (wearing JADE creation) made an appearance too. Avanti Birla stuck to a sober asymmetric tailored black dress with a (refreshingly) matching silver evening bag and pointy shoes. Rashmi Uday Singh on the other hand was in fiery orange buttoned down shirt complete with dhoti pants and floral clutch and Akansha Agarwal wore an animal print. I also spotted this printed kurta-dress in the crowd which I thought was fabulous…
When I inquired if the economic slowdown had promoted them to drop their prices, Karishma smiled and said, “No, that would go against our philosophy.” (Ah, clever philosophy.)
The Jade collection encompasses the Jade Couture, Bridal and Diffusion Line (again cool names.) I have to confess (and this may be because I don’t know a whole lot about fashion) that to me most of the western wear seemed an awful lot like the clothes you get at ZARA, only just blinged up (I think that’s what they mean by “refined detailing.”) I really liked the bridal wear though (somehow you can never bling that stuff up enough) especially this size zero mesh blouse with the tattoo to match (a great comment on how far the Indian bride really has come, dontchya think?)