Are you about to resume work after your wedding? The most pressing dilemma that majority of newly married women face is, "Should I dress up any differently than what I used to wear earlier". As per the Indian customs, a newly married woman should wear red bangles, sindur on forehead and a mangalsutra to flaunt her ‘married’ status to the rest of the world. She is also expected to wear bright coloured clothes for some time, as white and black colours are not considered auspicious.

A few of the traditions could vary in different communities. In Punjabis, a newly wed bride has to wear a chooda, a set of red and white bangles, for a certain mandatory period that could extend to twelve months in some families. While some girls may abandon a few customs out of personal choice but for the rest, adhering to customs and yet looking appropriate at work place may require a fine balancing act.

1. Buy very heavy and dressy outfits only for the major wedding functions.
   
2. Invest in clothing pieces that offer more wearability options.
   • All the three clothing items in this outfit can be paired with other pieces in multiple ways, hence increasing the wearability options.
     
   • A heavy banarsi dupatta worn over plain churidar can change the look from casual to dressy. It can be paired with a lot more outfits. An absolute value for money purchase!
   
   • A plain tunic accessorized with a heavy necklace and jhumkis can change the look from everyday wear to exotic wear!
   
3. Tunics and shirts are commonly worn work-wear pieces, therefore one can opt for a majority of these in the wardrobe, in basic, classic styles. You can opt for excellent quality fabric and brighter colours. These tunics and shirts can be worn with trousers to office and can also be paired with shimmer or embroidered pallazos/ salwars/ leggings/ shararas/ lehengas for social occasions.
   Another option could be to keep the entire outfit simple and to lift the look when required, one can add a statement dupatta or stole or a diamond jewellery piece/ accessories.
   

   
4. Accessories in the form of jewellery, stoles, scarves, dupattas, handbags, sandals play a very important role in changing the look of an outfit from work wear to occasion wear. Hence invest judiciously in a variety of these for more versatility.
   
5. Investment in precious diamond jewellery is also an area where wise decision-making is required. Girls are gifted a lot of gold and diamond jewellery on their weddings. Gifting a lot of heavy sets that cannot be worn on a day-to-day basis creates a dead inventory for the girl. She may have several sets in the locker but may not find enough new pieces to match with her daily wear clothes. Hence it would be wiser if parents and in laws gift the new bride light weight pieces like chains with pendants, variety of small earrings, rings, bangles and bracelets so that her jewels do not lie idle in the locker but are worn more often.
   Eves24 Jewel Library Services is one of its kind service wherein you can pick up heavy Diamond Jewellery sets from their collection to coordinate with your outfits and pay just the usage charge. You need not buy these diamond jewellery.
   Eves24 also offers Bridal Bbenefit Scheme, wherein you can buy a heavy jewel piece for wearing at the reception and then exchange them for 100% value with regular wear jewels required post reception.
   

   
6. How to wear the chooda at work without inviting unnecessary attention – Wearing long sleeved blouses /shirts is one option. The other could be to reduce the number of bangles. An innovative way, as illustrated in the picture below could be to design a cover for your chooda while at work.

7. Mangal sutra has also found a new avtar in modern times. Many jewellery stores are now offering mangalsutras that can be worn as a bangle. This could be an option for girls who want to flaunt a new style statement.

By Neha Suradkar : A Makeup & Nail Artist and Trainer, a Style Coach™, an Etiquette Trainer, a Corporate Coach and a Fashion Educator

Buying Diamond Jewellery is not an easy task. A lot of factors come into consideration when you are out looking for your best jewels. If we keep the budget aside, we have the design preference, preference for a particular cut or style, the overall look of the piece, the choice of metal or stone and so on. More often than not , we usually go with a pre-set preference for the metal and the stones and often come back with the pieces that fits the colour preference in our mind.

• Check the colour of veins in your wrist. Blue veins are for cool tone and green veins for warm tone.
• Keep a piece of golden paper and silver paper near your face, check which one brighten up your face. If it is gold, then warm tone and silver would mean cool tone. If both look good, it would be neutral tone.

1. Warm Skin Tone

• Go for warm metals like Yellow Gold, Rose Gold, Copper and Bronze.

• Warm hued gemstones such as Alexandrite, Citrine, Garnet, Morganite, Peridot, Ruby, Mandarin Garnet, and fancy yellow diamonds are a flattering choice.

• For Fashion Jewellery, warm, earthy colours like brown, yellow, orange would be appropriate for warm skin tones.

2. Cool Skin Tone

• Cool skin tones look flattering in white metals like white gold, silver, platinum.

• For gems consider pearls, Blue Sapphire, Amethyst, Aquamarine, Ruby, Emerald, Opal, Pariaba Tourmaline, Tanzanite and Zircon.

• Fashion jewellery in tones of pink, violet, blue, red will look flattering on cool tones.

3. Neutral Skin Tone

• Neutral tones look fabulous in both white and yellow metals.

• Almost all the gem stones could be worn by neutral tones.

Versatile Jewellery

A Makeup & Nail Artist and Trainer, a Style Coach™, an Etiquette Trainer, a Corporate Coach and a Fashion Educator and Blogger with an experience of almost 10 years in the fields of Fashion Design Teaching and Research, Personal Style Consulting, Makeup, Styling and Trainings.
She is the Founder and Creative Director of Mirror Image & Style Pvt. Ltd. In July 2016, Neha launched her makeup & nail studio and academy STYLE-N-FILE at Powai. Apart from providing complete service portfolio in Makeup and Nails, the students are trained as Nail Technicians and Makeup Artists with certification from International brands.
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