Fashion world’s big trade secret hidden inside Pydhonie’s bylanes
Ask any fashion designer, where he (or she) picks up fabrics — those swathes of cotton and silk yardage — and chances are that a trade secret may be revealed. The countless stalls — well micro-mini shops — at Pydhonie in Central Mumbai, are the favoured spot for textiles at bargain basement rates.
I checked the place out, a carnival of gullies tumbling into more gullies, and quite a bazaar it is. Obviously, I’ve been a dolt all these years, paying through my nostrils to update my household furnishings. And they’re exactly the same material, which costs a bomb at the upmarket stores, throughout south Mumbai and the suburbs.
Of course, you might have to spend hours browsing through the fabric wonderland, but believe me it’s worth the trip. Now, I just hope I’m not blacklisted by the haute fashionwallas.
Indeed, Pydhonie deserves a spot of its own on the tourist map, which has made stops at Chor Bazaar, Fashion Street and Colaba Causeway must-experiences. At Pydhonie, silver zari, antique metal taps and faux jewellery are all over the place, crowded essentially by the neighbourhood mohalla shoppers.
Incidentally, one of the facts that the Pydhonie denizens pride themselves with, is that an atmosphere of secularism has been preserved, even when communal riots have broken out in other parts of the city.
Abiding proof of this is the location of the Minara Masjid and a Jain temple within sneezing distance. And so during the lunch hour, you can catch Jain traders at a game of carrom on the streets, with the Muslim shopkeepers of textiles and attar, conversing in a patois of Urdu, Gujarati and Hindi.
Salaam namaste guys.
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