BRIDAL BLING, LA STYLE

So, while strolling across the sullen, financial district in downtown Los Angeles which shares boundaries with the jewellery and fashion district, I noticed a lot of street side, non-boutique stores selling bridal gowns. From everything bridesmaids as young as two years old would need--to tuxedos for the groom and his friends, these stores stock everything—tiaras and plastic flowers too.

Ninety blocks of downtown LA are taken by fashion stores –called the Fashion District which is a noted point on city tours and is the neighbour of the jewellery district. This jewellery which is apparently made on the first and second floors of showrooms is in gold, silver, diamonds and other precious stones and metals. Each window was a disappointment, each store tackier than the other. Hundreds of gold and silver chains, with pendants and rings around them decorated the windows that looked worse than the jewellery-soaked Laad Bazaar of Hyderabad near the Charminar or Dariba in good, Old Delhi. Our markets have colour, fervour, buzz, even if some stores sell tacky wares. But LA’s jewellery district was beyond boring. Who buys all this stuff after all? It seemed as if one had been pushed into a down-market area of gold obsessed Dubai with a million badly designed gold bangles flying into your aesthetic vision. The entire area is rundown, with shutters down on many a store that had earlier seen commercial sheen before the second phase of recession hit America.

The white and nice bridal gowns don’t really add cheer.