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Crochet comeback
Buddy Davis and Rina Dhaka are the polar opposites of the style rainbow, but today, they?re united by their re-discovery of crochet.
Buddy Davis and Rina Dhaka are the polar opposites of the style rainbow, but today, they’re united by their re-discovery of crochet. Having shed its granny image (think crochet and your mind will be flooded with images of screen goddess Marlene Dietrich), crochet has staged a comeback in funky styles and fab colours on the clothes of trendy teens. For reasons that aren’t hard to find. You can turn around your fraying jeans with a crochet patch on the knee or on the pockets. Or use crochet trimmings to sass up your denim skirts. The style is versatile and unisex. As Lee Cooper India’s MD, Harpratap Singh, puts it, “Even boys can wear shirts with collars or cuffs embellished with crochet.”
No wonder, crochet is the new fashion statement on campuses, says Buddy Davis MD Atul Aggarwal. “It goes well with denim, georgette, knitwear and cotton tops, and you can flaunt it in winter as much as in summer. Style it any way you want to at any time of the year,” he says.
Cher paired a crochet halter top with ripped jeans. Geena Davis wowed her audiences with a sexy crochet dress in the road film Thelma & Louise. Marc Jacobs paired khaki skirts and crochet tops for Spring-Summer 2004. And Rina Dhaka bagged the top award at the Miami Fashion Week 2004 by using crochet straps and patches on skirts. “I’m inspired by Alexander McQueen who’s constantly finding ways to make his garments sensual. Crochet, to a large extent, guarantees sensuality,” she says.
As crochet basks in its moment of glory, don’t forget that it was the Italian designer Emilio Pucci who first rescued it from tabletops in the ’60s as an answer to flower power. It was a counter to counter-culture. Says Kolkata’s Sabyasachi Mukerjee, who added sexy splashes of crochet to his line called Frog Princess at this year’s Lakme India Fashion Week: “I think crochet is like painting. And I admire (Kylie Minogue’s favourite designer) Julien MacDonald’s hand-made crochet dresses with eclectic add-ons.”
So, go ahead and replace lace with crochet on the plunging neckline of your sexiest blouse. But pay heed to fashion designer Suneet Varma’s words of caution: “Crochet has a granny-like feel, so the colour must be right. I feel nude works best. Crochet on the sleeves is a complete no-no.”
