In a drama-loving country like India, Bollywood stars are treated like God. Masses idolize them, follow them, listen to them, and try to imitate them. And that’s where the whole mechanism of marketing and advertising begins.
Brands need audience for their product and celebrities have enough of that. Sourcing is the product of this celebrity-brand conglomeration.
To those who haven’t heard about sourcing in Bollywood, I would like to inform that sourcingin Bollywood is one of the most effective ways used by brands to get free publicity for their products. Brands provide material or products they want to advertise for free to celebrities, and celebrities wear them in events, and brands, in turn, get free publicity.
I hope this has also answered your question about how Bollywood stars able to wear different dresses, jewellery, and accessories every time when they appear for professional appearance or attend a personal event. Most of the time most celebrities actually don’t buy that luxury branded shoes, jewellery, or outfits. They prefer sourcing over buying or renting. They get the material for almost no cost sitting at the couch of their home, as the brand or designer supplying it will get free publicity.
How Does Sourcing work?
It is a very simple process. Sourcing is done by stylists. Stylist work with celebrity to create a desired outfit for the event and brand provides the material to a celebrity to get free publicity.
Popular stylist Eshaa Amiin said, “Renting an outfit is generally charged at 25 percent of the price of the dress and with sourcing the cost is reduced even further, where all a star has to spend is the styling fee, which varies according to events.”
Above all, sourcing isn’t restricted to just clothes and jewellery; it now includes everything from shoes to bags and other accessories.
Jewellers find sourcing to be one of the easiest options to market their designs.
For us, sourcing as a medium has worked positively as A-listers who otherwise would be expensive to endorse are using our signature pieces in public appearances, where what they wear and how they do is always well talked about,” said Sanjay Jagwani, director of Notandas Jewelers.
In praise of sourcing model, Shruti Sancheti, who designs outfits for actors like Vidya Balan, Juhi Chawla, Anushka Sharma, Huma Qureshi, and other popular stars said, “Celebs do not form even 1 percent of our clientele.
However, with fashion blogs on the prowl, celebrities wearing our clothes get us the clients we need. For instance, Anushka wore a green Kurti to Kolkata while promoting Bombay Velvet and immediately we got inquires about it and we sold 30-odd identical pieces … this is how it works for us.
So it is a win-win situation for both brands and celebrities.
