Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra recently attended the royal wedding of friend Meghan Markle, and without a doubt looked stunning. While many of the fans praised her attire, former Samata Party president and textile revivalist Jaya Jaitly seems to be quite disappointed.
Also read:Besides Priyanka Chopra, another Indian woman attended the Royal wedding | Know who
Jaitly was vocal about her opinion as she took to Twitter and slammed the actress for not choosing a saree over a ‘British aristocrat’ dress. Jaya Jaitly’s tweet read, “How sad an Indian actor attending the royal wedding in the UK should dress like a British aristocrat at Ascot rather than represent a free and independent India in a beautiful Sari.”
How sad an Indian actor attending the royal wedding in UK should dress like a British aristocrat at Ascot rather than represent a free and independent India in a beautiful Sari. pic.twitter.com/zXF9zpCbMq
— Jaya Jaitly (@Jayajaitly) May 20, 2018
However, Jaya Jaitly’s complaint goes beyond Priyanka Chopra’s dress.
She told IANS: “All these actors, they dress up in all these fancy gowns by fancy designers who pay them for wearing their outfits and so they get fat money. Now, I keep feeling as I am loyal to our weavers and our textiles in India and we are working all our lives to revive it… We never attach a human being (the weaver’s name) with the brand name unless it has a designer’s name.”
She added: “We will say Kanjeevaram or Sambalpuri or something else and that’s the unfair practice all over the world and particularly in India.”
Jaitly even went on to question why Indian actresses wear western gowns to red carpet events abroad.
“Even in Hollywood (red carpets), where if I see Deepika Padukone wearing long gowns… they never really can compete. It’s like Indian fashion designers trying to do western dresses… Why don’t they wear most beautiful gorgeous sari, and everyone will go ‘wow’.”
An Indian activist, Suhani Jalota, who runs Myna Mahila Foundation, attended the royal wedding in an elegant sari designed by Indian brand Raw Mango run by designer Sanjay Garg.
Read more:What represented India on Meghan Markle’s wedding dress?
On the dichotomy of a dress code, Jaitly pointed out,”When somebody in a village in India says ‘Sar dhako (cover your head)’, we don’t want that… When somebody says, ‘Don’t wear jeans in college’, we say ‘Who are you to tell us a dress code?’. But if Queen in England descends an invitation and say you got to wear a hat, which is not part of your culture, you will start saying there was a dress code. I don’t understand these various double standards.”