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VRINDAVAN: If you thought designer dresses and clothes are for mortals only, you are mistaken, as there are designers who toil throughout the year to make our revered gods look their very best.

In the holy city of Vrindavan, at the Chandrodaya Temple, a group of six people, led by 35-year-old Sangini Indulekha, a management graduate who did a course in fashion designing only to pursue her passion to "serve the lord", design clothes for the idols of Kirshna and Radha. These clothes and dresses are sent to temples under the Hare Krishna movement, which are part of Iskcon, across the world and sometimes a single dress can cost as much Rs one lakh.

Attires of the deities have also undergone a sea change over the years - from usage of simple colours and attractive beads to stylish cuts with applique work (needlework technique in which patterns are created by the attaching smaller pieces of fabric to a larger piece of contrasting colour or texture) with Zardosi Aari embroidery. The clothes are now designed to make the "gods" stand out and look more appealing to the devotees at first sight.

Talking to TOI, Sangini said many decades ago, the styles were very simple and in "braj shaili" (style) where only simple silk with some pearls, thread work and flowery embroidery were used. She said later the Mughal concept took over where the use of velvet fabric, with thread work depicting domes and monuments became common.

In the 70s, the styles took a slight western turn, and the traditional braj shaili was experimented with the use of Kora and dapka embroidery. Sangini said the present day trend is to use of large varieties of bright coloured fabrics - pure silk, satin, tissue and shimmer- with applique work and stylish cuts.

Sangini said presently two styles of embroidery, Zardosi and Aari, are in vogue and various styles of stitches, including chall zamki, zigzag, fashavuda and pipalgray, are used to make the clothes attractive.

She said while the deities have a set of 50 dresses, which are changed every day, five special occasion dresses are designed every year for festivals. She said a normal dress for a three and a half feet deity idol takes about three weeks and special occasion ones, which have heavy work, can take over a month to design and stitch.

She said these dresses cost anything between Rs 45,000-75,000 and are sold to other temples, after including costs of material, design and labour.

Sangini said dresses for the deities were made earlier too but those who did the work had no formal design knowledge and picked up styles from here and there. However, things have changed now and the work is done more professionally by use of select colours, material and jewellery while keeping the occasions and people's expectations in mind.

Sangini admitted that there is a "competition" in temples and everyone wants their deity idol to look the best and attractive.

Anant Veer Das of Chandrodaya Temple Trust dresses designed here are are sent to temples across the world and only recently they had received orders from Dallas ISKCON temple in USA. He said recently, this centre is also making a dress for Tirupati Radha Krishna temple for Janmashtmi.

Girdhari, a worker at the design centre, said that he has been working here for the last few years and this job had provided him the satisfaction like none else. The team also has Ashit and Rambhir who have over 12 years experience in stitching and related work. Shyam Mistry, who has an experience of 28 years, is the man responsible for sketching the concepts created by Sangini on paper and then explaining them to the workers.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/Gods-too-wear-designer-clothing/articleshow/53202587.cms