In July this year, when the media had just begun speculating about Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh’s marriage, Deepika flew down to her hometown, Bengaluru. Together with her parents, the actress made her way to a sari store, Angadi Galleria, that the family have been long-standing patrons of. Among the many saris that were bought from the store that day was a pure zari, gold brocade Kanjeevaram sari for the bride-to-be. This is the same sari you’ve seen on social media, the one that Deepika wore for the traditional Konkani wedding ceremony. In case you need to jog your memory, here it is again —
A representative of The House of Angadi told us, “It’s a sari from our in-house label, Advaya, designed by Mr K Radharaman, founder and head designer. You can’t tell from the photographs but it’s deep red in colour. It features a Gandaberunda motif – the Gandaberunda is a two-headed mythical bird, which is also the state symbol of Karnataka. As per south Indian tradition, nobody except your family can gift you your wedding sari.”
Radharaman adds, “The Gandaberunda symbolises royalty and tradition in equal measure. The two heads also connote prosperity and wisdom or material and spiritual wealth.”
When Deepika and her family came to the store, the representative we spoke to had an inkling that it could be for her wedding but, in line with their policy of not prying in their customers’ personal lives, did not ask the family any questions. “We have never paid celebrities to wear our saris, nor publicised the fact that they do wear our designs,” the representative added. “We are very proud that Deepika chose to wear a Kanjeevaram sari and represented south India. The Padukone family is sophisticated and subtle in their fashion choices, and that’s what we stand for as well.”
While the sari was initially thought to have been designed by Sabyasachi, the designer cleared the air on social media by giving due credit to Angadi Galleria. He clarified that he added a veil and styled the sari. The clarification was made following an Instagram post by The Voice of Fashion which first traced Deepika’s sari to Angadi Galleria. “Sabyasachi styled it well but the sari is an Advaya,” the representative added.
