Kajol called Karwa Chauth a fashion deal. The Kapoors' party proved her right

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Top photo: sieves wrapped in tinsel, with painted clay karwas behind them, on a vendor's table in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, in the days before Karwa Chauth, October 2023. Photo by Suyash Dwivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Anshula Kapoor "looked bridal in a red suit" at her aunt's Karwa Chauth party on Thursday, Bollywood Bubble reported. It was her first Karwa Chauth, India TV reported. Shilpa Shetty's silk saree faded from pastel pink to deep red at the border, worn with an emerald blouse and an emerald choker. Red carried the evening.

Sonam Kapoor wore a crimson anarkali under a sheer organza jacket of rust and gold. Mira Rajput picked beige-gold tissue silk with mirror work on the border. The hostess was Sunita Kapoor, and her guests included Neelam Kothari, Maheep Kapoor, Bhavana Pandey and Mini Mathur, in a red saree, according to India TV. Aamir Khan came too, Bollywood Bubble reported.

Kajol saw this coming. In a 2023 interview with Humans of Bombay, reported by Bollywood Hungama, she blamed her own films for turning a simple ceremony into "a fashion deal where everyone has to get dressed." "Now they have to wear good clothes," she said.

Her summary of the new rule was "Bhookh bhi chalegi," hunger is fine, "as long as you are looking good while you are starving." Thursday's party took her at her word.

Her films are Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, released on October 20, 1995, and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham six years later. In the first, Simran keeps the fast for Raj. Raj secretly keeps it for her, as the Wikipedia entry on the festival sums up the plot. A wife's sunrise-to-moonrise fast became courtship, with a soundtrack.

Thirty-one years later the fast has a dress code, and the dress code has a price. Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders, put Karwa Chauth business at about ₹28,000 crore nationwide in 2025. That was an ANI report carried by The Tribune. His figure for 2024 was ₹22,000 crore, and for 2023 about ₹15,000 crore.

Those are a lobby's estimates, built on what Khandelwal called heavy consumer rush and feedback from across the country. The same report credited GST rate cuts with giving shoppers extra relief. The list ran through sarees, lehengas, jewellery and cosmetics, with long queues at beauty parlours and mehendi artists. I could not find a 2026 estimate from the confederation by Saturday.

Vineeta Singh, chief executive and co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics, wrote on LinkedIn in November 2023 that her brand's biggest day was "the day before Karwachauth," Business Today reported. It beat Valentine's Day and Black Friday. She put that one day's sales at ₹4 crore. Her post showed a Ludhiana general store at 6:30 in the evening.

Singh put Sugar's October sales at ₹75 crore in the same post. October also holds the run-up to Diwali.

The admen got there early. The Wikipedia entry on the festival cites a Chevrolet television spot, described in a 2005 marketing textbook, in which a man shows his care for his wife by buying a car with a sunroof. That is jugaad with a showroom price.

Even the sieve got a makeover. Before jaalis were easy to buy, many women looked at the moon through a dupatta, Shereen Bhalla wrote on the Hindu American Foundation's blog in 2020. Then the market got hold of the idea. The ones in Bhopal, pictured at the top, wear gold, purple and green tinsel.

The folklore is older than the tinsel. Some believe a happy marriage lasts "for as many holes as there are in the sieve," Bhalla wrote. A muslin dupatta has thousands, and it costs nothing extra.

A woman holds up a decorated sieve during Karwa Chauth, October 24, 2021. The photographer did not record where it was taken. Photo by Soham1992Sanyal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Khandelwal now has a plan for the men. In 2025 he urged husbands to keep the fast for their wives' health, happiness and long life, the confederation said in a statement. He has kept it himself for over twenty years. A traders' lobby that wants husbands to fast has spotted a second shopper in every marriage.

Some husbands volunteer without a lobby. Bhalla, who described herself as "a proud feminist and first-generation Hindu American," was a new bride that year. "Vijay will keep the fast with me that day," she wrote of her husband. Her father, she added, now keeps it beside her mother "as a sign of solidarity."

By that measure Raj was ahead of his time in 1995.

So I have one request for the men who join the fast. Dress for it. On Thursday the women brought chooda, potlis, organza and emeralds. Aamir Khan's deep blue floral kurta with black harem pants was the one man's outfit Bollywood Bubble described in any detail.

That can change. A husband who can go a day without food and water for his wife can manage a pressed kurta and a pair of mojaris. It takes one decision.

The same Wikipedia entry counts Fiji among the places that keep the fast. The shopping travels too. In August the Indian designer-wear retailer Aza Fashions published a Karwa Chauth guide for the United States. It timed the moon from about 8:33 p.m. in the east to 9:05 p.m. on the Pacific coast.

Los Angeles and San Francisco got a draped saree or an anarkali suit. For New York and Chicago the guide went heavier, with a velvet lehenga or a silk Kanjeevaram. For the October chill it offered "a slim thermal underneath your lehenga skirt." It had no advice for husbands.