Your search for that perfect look ends here

With the wedding season around the corner, there’s a palpable hustle bustle in the air. Bridal shopping, anxious bridegrooms-to-be, budgets and a whole lot of planning; is it where personal shoppers come into play? 

Succinctly, personal shoppers are people who take you around on a shopping spree, think, buy, and almost take decisions on your behalf to share your burden to an extent. Does their purview only extend to pre and post wedding extravaganzas or their reach extends beyond that, Metrolife explores.

Kalpana Dutt, an engineer settled in Paris, finally planned to tie the nuptial knot early this year. With a million things running on her mind, she had a Gordian knot to crack. Her marriage was in India and she only had a week-long holiday to come down for it.

In a day or two’s time, Kalpana had to purchase her full-fledged wedding trousseau in New Delhi.  A random search online did the trick for this bride-to-be. She came across a personal shopper’s bridal-wedding blog, peachesandblushes.com where surprisingly the editor-cum-writer updated bride-files and blogs on her experience ahead of her own wedding.

Mehak Shahani, the editor of the blog now runs a personal shopping venture particularly for weddings since October 2012. “I wanted to do shopping for atleast 10 weddings before I went live with the personal shopping venture.

As soon as I successfully turned it around, I knew there was demand for personal shoppers like me, says the young and ebullient Mehak. From make-up artistes to Sabyasachi-style (read: not really designer) sarees in the bylanes of Delhi, her blog deals with everything with a personal touch through her own story.

 While Mehak’s realm as a personal shopper is specific to weddings, Sheena Agarwal has found inroads into the lives of corporate honchos in New Delhi. The 28-year-old describes herself as an image consultant who “helps people through colour analysis, body assessment, wardrobe audits and personal shopping to put together a wardrobe for personal branding in a corporate space.” 

This Goldman-Sachs executive turned personal-shopper believes, “Personal branding can help you shape a different curve in your career path. A large chunk of my clients come from corporate backgrounds; people, in the 40-50 years bracket, who have made a niche for themselves after coming from smaller cities.”

The price range for these personal shopping packages falls anywhere between Rs 15,000-50,000, says Sheena, adding,” I started this venture three years ago through social media only. An average man in India has a constant pot-belly issue; we scout their wardrobes, take them out for shopping and get them customised products for their look. I like to keep it as a one-time affair; if I can educate them once about their body type and clothing, there’s nothing like it.”

While Sheena admits that there has been a growth in the demand for personal shopping from young brides and bridesgroom-to-be side since the last six months, she usually deals with her core client group  to serve power dressers, independent and ambitious people.