Jaipur awakens your senses with a jolt. Each day is a pageant of hues and costumes, light and pattern, sound and smell; appealing not in a quaint ethnic way but with it's own innate sense of style. View a village woman through the scalloped arches, teamed in a diaphanous lime green scarf with a fuschia bodice and a blue 'dabu' skirt wafting through like an ad for Kenzo or look at a wrinkled old man, curled moustaches et al, so defiantly cool in a Bagru print angrakha, dark glasses and a candy floss pink turban!

For all it's sartorial delights, Jaipur has proved to be the hub for rich textures, taking the gold from the sands, the colours from it's gems, silver from it's mahals, it's cadence from the desert winds, creating it's unique beat and rhythm in the world of fashion.            

 The 'haute' pink city has been transported to the fashion ramparts of the globe. It is simply colourful. Not strange anymore to find Bandhini skirts in the boutiques at Ceaser's Palace in Las Vegas or swarovski studded block printed chiffon shirts at the Nordstrom stores.  There is so much traditional craft to take from, what emerges is a perfect blend of both. No boundaries to experimentation with hand block printing, indulging in surface ornamentation, off-setting with edging in brocade, in tit-bits of samudri leheriya – we can raise quite a storm here!

Pink city flavour

"Jaipur has kept it's flavours, the crafts of block printing with vegetable dyes, bandhini, leheriya, mirror work, allow the designer tremendous artistic freedom to re-create, innovate to make a garment trendy. Silhouettes have become modern. A Bhopal Shahi leheriya traditionally used for turbans is now being made into saris in stark bright colours," says Puja Arya, a designer who makes styles come alive in block prints.

Animal prints in chiffons decorated with gold and silver 'khadi' of traditional block prints on shirt dresses, camisoles, velvet jackets, jodhpurs . A hand embroidered  woolen knit T-shirt with a red brocade mini-skirt to make sure the 'teenage' girl would wear it. "Everytime I make a garment I rediscover myself in it, I give it form, my strength, my soul," says Monisha Tharyamal. Her inspiration comes from "the hidden and forgotten past, the museums, the roads, the women on the streets. Gota is not simply 'that small leaf embroidery', it is a whole culture."

Jean Paul Gaultier's summer collection was entirely based on block prints, kaalbelia and gota. Armani used Jaipur's colours in his collection and both lines were a rage on the ramp in Paris. Rohit Bal and Krsna Mehta have worked with 'Jaipur' per se, visiting the city very often. "You can't be a flash in the pan kind of designer endorsing designs which have been, will be and are not going to be going anywhere in a long time.". Andrew Logan, a designer from UK, the name taken in the same breath as Zandra Rhodes comes every year for "an exchange of ideas."

Just a jooti?

Who would have thought those humble pointed 'flats' with turned up chins will find their way into the line of vision of designers all over the world ? If Donna Karan can team her outfits with rich maroon jootis and if you hear comments like Jaipuri jootis are in short supply at Paul Sexton's boutique, then certainly you do land up giving them a second look and that too with more respect.

From the simple camel leather jootis, considered 'rustic', embellished with sequins, aari, cut danaas, zardozi, even bells that tinkle – the jooti has evolved. Wear them casually with a pair of jeans, a cotton skirt or with your wedding lehnga – the jooti will carry you off with élan and style. Icy blues, vibrant pinks, flaming oranges and lime greens wink at you from the corner shop at Link Road in Jaipur. Footwear designer duo from Finesse (New Delhi) have carried the jooti to 'ooh la la' corridors of Dehi.  Locally cured leather from skins of camels, buffalos, sheep and goat, jootis come in shades of beige, tan, dark brown and maroon. Now brocade, velvet and raw silk is also used.

And the jhola

If you carried a jhola as a college girl, you were considered 'oh that intellectual' girl from next door' or 'she must be a journalist'! The jhola was a symbol of identifying personality types. It still can be used to do the same – only that the personality types are 'ethnic' if the jhola is all mirrorwork. 'Kitschy' if it is appliquéd in gloriously bright patches of royal purples, shocking pinks and turquoise blues. Quite 'like a lady' if you have an aari work bag hanging from your shoulders!