Are you ready to be bandaged?

Manpriya Singh 

We pulled out— A bandage dress  

Let’s admit it, what’s the point of having something if you are not going to flaunt it. Which is why, thy with hourglass figure shall not shy away from bandage dresses.  The first attempt at describing a bandage dress starts with differentiating it from a regular figure-hugging bodycon dress.  Figure hugging it is, but something that doubles up as shape wear for good measure.  So bandage numbers fit like second skin. A couple of years ago, when SRK’s daughter Suhana Khan was just about beginning to make public appearances as a young teenager, the then 17-year-old chose a fierce coral Herve Leger bandage number making her mother remark on Instagram as to how, “that orange worked.”  As the newest star kid on the block, she was making an appearance for the launch of a restaurant that mom Gauri Khan had designed.  Then we’ve seen home grown socialites often in and out of the bandage dresses, especially the likes of Gauri Khan, Queenie Singh and Sussane Khan, among others for the past decade.  The bandage dress, now a generic name of sorts for a dress that resembles a bandage wrapped around your body, was first created by Herve Leger back in the 80s. And as the red carpet may have told you, the likes of Miranda Kerr, Kim Kardashian and Caitlyn Jenner have been seen out and about in them.   

The appeal lies in 

the challenge 

Ideally, there are only few things that you need to tick off before slipping in one. Ideally. Never mind if putting together those few things is next to impossible because as designers have often said, that the garment sucks you in and spills you out at the right places respectively. “There is a very thin line between raunchy and sexy, so I would personally recommend women with hourglass figure only to go for it. And yes, it’s an outfit I associate with the young and ‘young looking’, just like biker leather jackets. There is a certain age that is the right fit for any kind of garment, especially for bandage dresses,” cautionary words from the designer duo Sheena and Ratan Ohri from the label Shibori, immediately takes us to an infamous interview given by Patrick Couderc the once UK director of Herve Leger, who did not approve of elder women, flat-chested women or women with “prominent” hip bones slipping into one. While the director may have been immediately axed for his remarks, the likes of Kim Kardashian only proved that heavily endowed women can rock a bandage number, provided it is worn for the right occasion. 

manpriya@tribunemail.com