Magdoom Brothers

Move over Chandana Brothers and other similar sounding ladies' and gents' showrooms - your worst nightmare has finally arrived. It's the Maqdoom Brothers store at Banjara Hills. Fine, "finally arrived" wouldn't be entirely accurate since the store per se has been around right from 2001, but you get the general idea.

An extremely narrow flight of stairs leads you to this exclusive men's store. The store itself is quaint, old-fashioned and unassuming, and doesn't have any airs about itself. It just does its job, which is to provide some really amazing clothes for formal occasions.

As the excessively helpful store owner takes you through their entire collection patiently explaining the specialty of each kurta and blazer you can't help but enjoy the attention showered on you. Or is it because I come from fullhyd.com? Oh, it was fun nevertheless. They have kurtas in a dozen varieties, each one better than the next. Crushed material, brocade, Jamiawar, jute, silk, crepe you name it, and they have dresses made using it.

Intricate embroidery and gold inlay work, painstakingly done with startling precision; plush and pure fabrics; and the fact that they are stitched by hand right here in Hyderabad; calling this the Seville Row of Hyderabad would be an understatement.

Ah! This store mirrors Seville Row in more ways than one. It would take a veritable king's ransom to buy a few of these kurtas. Some of these brocade kurtas cost anything from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 40,000, and that's just for the kurta. That should give you some idea of their scale and range. But they also have more affordable dresses in 4-digit figures, which look just as chic, and are eminently wearable.