Indian-made wool stoles to add glitter to royal wedding

From Ludhiana with love

 Ludhiana’s Centex Exports has shipped the stoles to London-based popular online fashion business store Boden. They will also be gifted to the guests invited for the wedding at London’s Westminster Abbey. Each stole costs 45 pounds. Made of soft wool, the stoles are in red and blue, brown and scarlet, and green and grey colour variants. The Union Jack is printed on both sides of the stoles.

Moreover, the wool has been knit to form an animal print pattern carrying a small patch with the words, “April 29th 2011; William and Kate; With love from Boden”.
“It’s a singular honour to be asked to create such an important keepsake for a wedding which will be historic. We have been chosen from across the world to manufacture the scarves. This is a mark of Indian excellence and innovation and also it is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said a visibly excited Vineet Sood, the Centex Exports managing director.

Centex was chosen after a market study by Boden. “This is the wedding of fantasy and it becomes the major point for the Britishers to project their royalty. They are the force to reckon with today and when such a huge audience will get the live coverage, every small detail needs to be checked. So the royal family hired the service of third party Boden,” Sood said. “The company went across China and South Korea in search of a supplier as they were looking at very fine quality of wool.

“They went across different brands but couldn’t get the desired result. And then since Centex are into manufacturing of scarves since 1969 and we happened to be working with top brands like Burberry and Giorgio Armani, they asked us to make some some samples and were impressed. The designs were given by them,” he added. The company has made another 2,600 stoles and scarves for Boden which will be sold online.  The guest list includes dignitaries like US First Lady Michelle Obama, Australian premier Julia Gillard and the Beckhams.