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| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Beauty culture and bridal dressing course for tsunami survivors : Looking on the brighter side by Carol Aloysius
When beauty culture and bridal dressing expert Indu Hewapathirana first heard of the plight of the tsunami survivors languishing in camps for want of a home or means to a livelihood, she felt a deep pity for them. "I was concerned especially about the uncertain fate of the young women who were living in displaced camps, some of them without parents, without homes, without jobs and with practically no income generating skills . These minus points only compounded their extreme vulnerability", she says. Determined to do something for them, she decided to launch a mobile beauty culture and bridal dressing course taking these two specialities to the very doorstep of these internally displaced persons. "I am now trying to get in touch with the GAs and the Social Services Ministry, to get permission to put this training program into operation", she told the Sunday Observer recently.
The former St. Mary's Convent , Matara student says she hopes to visit her hometown initially, since the destruction from the tsunami was so devastating there, leaving thousands of young women helpless. Trained under one of Sri Lanka's best known bridal dressers, Harris Wijesinghe, Indu ventured out on her own twelve years ago, when she started a bridal centre in a room in her home at Pitakotte. She has recently opened her new 'Bridal Centre' at Pitakotte which caters to everything a bride-to-be on a shoe string budget needs, from head dresses to sarees or dresses to shoes to ornaments. For, unlike most of her colleagues in the business, Indu has targeted those from among the middle class, and lower middle class who cannot afford fancy prices when choosing a bridal outfit, as her clientale. "All my bridal sarees are made of locally available material like handlooms and silks. The bouquets are also hand made, mostly artificial flowers, making use of twigs, leaves and creepers such as nugawel, flowers such as the lotus, araliya in either painted or natural form, which are easily found in the vicinity . As for the accessories, I try to make them too - out of local material like beads and sequins." The result is a bridal outfit for less than six thousand rupees complete with hair ornaments, earrings, bracelets, and bouquets. She also dresses brides. The daughter of an artist, Indu says her first experience in dressing brides was two days after her mother passed away. "Although I found it very difficult to concentrate on what I was doing at that time, my client was pleased with the result and soon spread the word to her friends. Most of my clients come to me by word of mouth and not by seeing any advertisement about my salon", she says. While her accent is on traditional designs, Indu also experiments with modern designs, usually blending both styles to achieve a novel and striking effect. I can sew, embroider, make costume jewellery and assemble bridal bouquets, apart from making-up bridal sarees and dressing the bride. I learned all these skills, by trial and error experiment on my own", she says with justified pride. Now she hopes to share her knowledge and skills with her lesser privileged sisters - in this case young women living without any skills to earn their livelihood, in camps or even with their families in the tsunami affected areas. "These classes will include lessons on personal hygiene and living a healthy lifestyle, eating a balanced meal and looking at life with a positive outlook. Since my audience will be more or less a captive audience under one roof, I feel this would be an excellent opportunity to tap their talents as well as distract them from their sad thoughts", she says. |
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