Valley agitation hits wedding dress traders hard

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ldquo;We have incurred a loss of about 20-21 lakhs”, said Asif Bhat, a Srinagar-based businessman. He said they bring fresh cloth stock in January and February. It takes six months to get them ready for the showroom.

The dress-makers lament the fact that the sales this year could not be anywhere close to that witnessed last year.

"In comparison to last year’s sales, we have undergone loss of about 70 per cent because of the strike. October is the wedding season. We hoped that all of our bookings that we did in the past two months would be recovered. But we incurred losses. Now the people, who earlier used to wear lehgas during the weddings, prefer to wear simple wedding suits," said Tagvish Ahmed another shop-keeper.

The brides and bridegrooms, who earlier thought of wearing the specially designed dress on wedding day, are also dejected due to non-availability of a wide special dress material for weddings.

“These days, the fashion of wearing traditional Lehngas and Sherwanis has captured the minds of every bride and groom. But many of them were disappointed as the shopkeepers could not buy enough stock from outside. The brides and grooms could not buy dresses as per their desire," lamented Afrida Dar, one such buyer. End.