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It's unusual
ANOKHI, A store that specialises in cotton clothing, is a delight for those on the qui vive for delicately made hand printed garments to beat the heat this summer. Situated at the Leela Palace Galleria, Anokhi is new to Bangalore, but not to the business of making beautiful garments out of block printed fabric, which is carefully designed by Anokhi craftsmen on a farm outside Jaipur.
The story dates back to 1970s when Faith and John Singh, who started the business, came down to India and engaged tailors to make garments for exporting back to UK.
As business boomed, tailors and block printers were hired and designers from India and overseas saw to it that raiment produced at Anokhi were unique in keeping with its name.
The company now trains and provides a livelihood to many rural families in Jaipur and has state-of-the-art facilities where they produce their garments. Over the years, Anokhi has opened three stores in Delhi and one each in Jaipur, Mumbai, and Bangalore.
The range of products has increased from apparel to home furnishings, accessories, and gift products too. You can thus see an entire section of the store dedicated to displaying home furnishings like curtains, quilts, throws, cushion covers, bedspreads etc. Block prints of the furnishing fabric also differ and you can pick up coordinated items of almost everything from Gudri (embroidery) work cushion covers (starting at Rs. 135 per cover), bedspreads (some of the richly embroidered ones are beautiful but very expensive), tea cosies beach bags, hold-alls, quilts (available in both queen and king sizes, singles and doubles, priced at Rs. 880 upwards).
While the prices of some of the products may seem a bit steep, there are other accessories and gift items that could be picked up without a second thought. These include, pouches, fabric-covered files, little notebooks, sarong bags, carry bags, make-up cases etc..
Ms. Muthu Bidapa, who manages the Bangalore showroom, tells us that prices at all stores of Anokhi are consistent regardless of the fact that the store is at Leela Palace.
Anokhi also has pegs (priced around Rs. 200) and showpieces fashioned out of printing blocks that have actually been used by Anokhi. Each month, the store gets two new collections of garments (differing in fabric and print, but not necessarily in style), and home furnishings.
They call each collection a "story". The stories of the garments include clothes for both men and women, though the collection for women is much wider than that for men (shirts, kurtas, and chudidars). The range of women's clothes in impressive with light cotton sarongs, long dresses, kaftans, long and short kurtas, western wear tops, and more. Clothes have pink tucked designs and embroideries and different styling in terms of necklines.
Says Ms. Bidapa: "We ensure that our garments come in all sizes like petite, small, medium, large, and extra large." So if you're one of those odd sizes, don't despair this summer, for Anokhi will surely give you something you'll love.
Anokhi can be contacted at 5424229.
TINA GARG
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