I always wanted to wear my mom’s wedding lehenga – a beautiful golden vintage tissue lehenga embroidered with delicate zardozi and meenakari work. The lehenga reminds me of Bollywood in the 90s when Kajol in DDLJ wore Manish Malhotra’s opulent golden lehenga, which quickly became a sensation (and is followed and talked about even today).
There is something about owning and donning oneself in timeless pieces that have moved beyond time and its quick merciless trends. Each time you wear them, they remind you of the ages, decades, seasons, and tales it has gone through and witnessed; the times and moments that weren’t yours but were a huge part of someone you love dearly.
So, when I wore it for one of my wedding events, it felt like I was carrying forward the love my parents shared during their special day; the hopes, dreams, and memories my mother was carrying as a new bride. I looked into the mirror and felt as if I was wrapped in the warmth of my mom’s unconditional (and often unspoken) love and blessings. Therefore, it was not just a wedding outfit for me but a sentimental piece of heritage, a reminiscence of my parent’s past.
What also compelled me to wear it was its sharp contrast to the fashion we are witnessing now. The lehenga reflects the charm of vintage fashion when each cut, stitch, and detail used to be deliberate; when each thread on the fabric reflected the timelessness of Indian textile art; the labor and skills of artisans. They were made to be worn again and again and again. To sum it up: it had a soul unlike what we witness today in the name of “modern” fashion where garments are often purchased to be disposed of and discarded after a few uses.
Wedding lehenga, like any other object, can be a great source of material memory for some, as it holds and evokes memories, emotions, and meanings; a means for some to see their personal and collective history. Serving as a bridge between generations, it can help understand one’s identity as it allows us to peek into one’s family history. Clothes as material memory can help us understand where we come from and can remind us of who we are.
The threads of the stories are sewed and knitted in each of our garments and this is what gives them a value that survives the mortality of humans. This is why we tend to hold on to the clothes of our dear ones even when they are gone. This was beautifully showcased by an exhibition titled “Material Memory” by British Textile Biennial, an England-based organisation. It invited people to send their textile items that are precious to them. People from all over the UK participated and the oldest piece they got was from the 1800s. It had participants explaining why the particular piece of cloth held a special place in their hearts. They brought items such as a memory quilt sewed with several random pieces of clothes, a memento cloth from Egypt, a jacket embroidered by someone’s dead mother, an embroidered journal, and a knitted piece made during someone’s chemotherapy, among other items.
“Clothes have magic and power. That jacket is like a time machine because whenever you look at it, it evokes lots and lots of happy memories,” one of the participants explained. “Richness and wealth actually have to do with memories and the things attached to an object,” a curator explained. A lot of items displayed, were really cared for and mended over the years.
In a world increasingly obsessed with celebrity culture, the instant social popularity of certain trends and its imminent downfall with the arrival of new ones, there’s something about textiles and clothes that mirror the innocence of the past and the decades that have gone by. The personal stories associated with them remind us of what truly and ultimately matters to human relationships. Much like the items showcased in the Material Memory exhibition, my mother’s lehenga transcends its physical form to become a living archive of love, history, and craft. It tells me how clothes are not just garments but are witnesses to life’s most intimate moments, carriers of identities, and keepers of legacy.
To wear such pieces is to connect with something bigger than you. Perhaps that’s why we cherish these mortal objects so deeply; they are our anchors in time, our portals to memory, and our bridges to those we hold dear. In their folds, we find not just fabric, but fragments of ourselves.
