In the early 20th century, fashion was ruled by the good old friendly neighbourhood darzi (tailor), who could design the choicest of outfits for you at a nominal price. All you had to do was show him clippings from fashion magazines, such as Seventeen and Burda, or movie postcards where your favourite heroine looked pretty as a picture, thanks to Bollywood designers, and voila, he would replicate the same designs for you. The choli, which was designed by Oscar-winning fashion designer Bhanu Athaiya and sported by Nadira in the 1955 film Shri 420, had women rushing to their tailors with photos of the same. Leena Daru’s white salwar-kameezes and pastel dupattas that Sridevi wore in the 1989 film Chandni spawned many ready-to-wear copies by tailors in Chandni Chowk, New Delhi.

A model showcases Bela Parekh’s outfit. The designer uses eco-friendly fabrics with vegetable dyes and hand-block prints

When fashion shows started in India in early 1950s, popular tailoring shop Smart & Hollywood at Kala Ghoda, which was set up in 1945, designed entire collections for fashion shows for Delhi Cloth Mills, Calico and Hakoba Mills and even the Miss India fashion shows. In 1960s and ’70s, boutiques such as Rukhmani run by Mani Gazdar at Kemps Corner, and Rose Bleu run by Jackie Narielwala at Tardeo, designed and tailored clothes for fashion shows and customers. With the advent of high-end designers and fashion houses that offered creatively designed readymade clothes in 1990s, the darzi’s popularity dipped to some extent.

The demand still exists
However, there is still a demand for custom tailoring, which now goes under stylish titles such as custom designing, made-to-measure, made-to-order or bespoke tailoring. Women who can’t fit into fixed readymade sizes or want something special and personalised in their wardrobes usually opt for this.