Jodhpur Bling

Photos from the Clock Tower market, Old city, Near Mehrengarh Fort, Jodhpur…taken in December 2010.

Louise Lavabre for FCUK

Louise is a photojournalist and a writer. (check her recently updated travel blog here). She turned 24 on the 1st of this December and spent half of her birthday on the plane way back to France. Thinks birthday are only cool if you are a kid with lots of friends and doesn’t like them anymore.

Childhood
I grew up in the suburbs of Paris in a city called St Leu la Forêt(which literally means Saint wolf of the forest implying there were once wolves in Europe..next to Paris)..half an hour away by train from the capital city. My city was small, only 15 000 inhabitants, and was quite ugly, but I liked it. I had my friends there. We would go to the high school or next town by bikes and local buses, have house parties, smoke weed in the forest near my house (we even built a really cool cabin and would make fire there). I am the eldest child of a 4 girls family, so my childhood was also really centered around family. I remember arguing with my sister about her or me “stealing friends” or my make up, or even my place as the first kid since she looked older and taller than me. But all in all, we got along really well.
As a teenager I started getting bored of hanging around, doing the same old things, seeing the same old faces just a bit grayed by new beard, being both part and subject of all that countryside like gossip, I moved to Paris at 17 after finishing my high school degree.

What did you study after moving to Paris and what do you do now?
I studied Political Science : Philosophy, Economics, History, and Law mainly. In France, my university is a pretty good way to enter the media…and that’s what I wanted.
Now? I don’t know. I am trying to do many things, but you know, we say you tend to lose yourself trying to do too many things. So I..I travel a lot. I take photographs as much as I can. I care a lot about my relationships, with friends, family, love…I try to keep some time to write or talk or see those I love. Ahhh interviews always make you look stupid!

What excites & inspires you in life?
I guess answer to this is in my last answer. I try to do what inspires me I suppose. So traveling for sure, meeting people. Images more than sound (probably why I chose photos over recording). Reading. Well I guess all those are forms of traveling, experiencing the unknown, breaking the frontiers of what your life consists of, meeting something new and different. So it can be a physical travel, or it can be through a movie, a book, an incredible person you spent 24 hours with… many things.

Countries you have travelled to?
I have seen a lot of Asia. Well, this is not quite true. To be exact I went to a lot of Asian countries, but this doesn’t mean I have seen that much of them. Younger..I used to be this kind of a backpacker who was more thrilled by the simple idea of being on the road no matter where but now it is about actually seeing and feeling a place which requires time. And younger I had no time. Just wanted to see a lot and tell about it. So all in all, I have been to China, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, India, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Ghana, Kenya. All around Europe obviously since that’s where I come from. Canada and the US.

Why do you feel the need to travel?
The experience of traveling is linked to many things : the person you travel with (a friend, several friends, family, a lover, or simply yourself), the time you spend there, the season you are there (as depending on the season locals have a different approach to tourists), the landscapes, the culture, the hospitality of people…and those elements will count more or less according to the country you are in. A travel is an equation. Sometimes this equation is perfect. But now as I am thinking about it, all my travels have been perfect because the equation has always been surprising. A travel never looks like what you expected from it. Contrary to a party or studies, not fitting your expectations is never synonymous with disappointment.
I think I always feel the need to travel more because the more I travel the harder it is to impress my traveler’s eyes. As I said earlier, younger I wanted to see, now, and I know this sounds a little pretentious, I want to feel and document.

Traveling preferences and places you’d like to go to…
I prefer traveling to mountains rather than sea. First because I think the sea kinda looks the same everywhere. Then also because I think mountain landscapes & climate are more rough, more intense than a sea-side and that makes the living conditions there more rough…which I find interesting. And photographically, again, mountains are more fascinating. The light, the colours, the faces, the clothes, the fact that you don’t know what lies beyond the next curve….
I really want to go to Iran, Afghanistan and Ladakh. I loved middle-east. I loved Asia. I am very curious to see the countries in between.

What places did you visit in India and what did you like the most?
Well the initial plan was to go to Ladakh and trek in the Himalayas. But everybody (you too!) told me it was absolutely not the season ’cause of the early winter and the blocked roads so I flew to Trivandrum and came to Bombay via Kerala and Goa. I really liked Munnar(faces of the people seemed so different), Fort Kochi, Panajim (up in the town the atmosphere is totally different) and Mumbai!!
As a general concern, I really liked women. There’s something I noticed over my travels..there is a strange and beautiful complicity between the women of the world. As if we were sharing a secret. I love to have this confirmation each time I enter a bus, a train station, a market, or while strolling on the streets of a city.

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Below, Louise is in her favorite shirt…Got Milk?

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The post-it on the wall reads “forstarkare. kontakt. uttag” which means “amplifier. contact. sockets.” I’ve been trying to learn Swedish for a year.

Moving on: from water to sand

I am leaving Bombay today…going on a two month long trip. I start with Jodhpur and then move up north..still undecided where post Jodhpur. Delhi & Chandigarh are certain. Maybe Varanasi. Maybe Shillong. Maybe Dharamsala. Hope to find some amazing street style photos.

Photos from Bombay and Pushkar(from my previous trip).

Lookbook:Bungalow 8 A/W ’10 – 2

Lookbook:Bungalow 8 A/W ’10 – 1

Picking up from where I left off…the room wasn’t exactly the way we saw it last. It had changed quite a bit with an overabundance of toys…so the lonely little hippos, plastic ducks, stuffed cats, and fabric frogs..all became a part of the shoot.

Make up – Brendon D
Stylist - Nidhi Jacob
Model – Preeti Dhata
Designer – Mathieu G

This post is getting too long so I have decided to break it in to two parts. Next one follows soon.

Bell-bottoms, skinnies, Daniel Day-Lewis, and the Kinks

In a scene of skinnies..

…what chance do bell-bottoms have of coming back?

Born in the 60s, drastically wider in the 70s, probably last seen in the 80s in Bollywood inspired India..now they can only be found occasionally on working class drifters, in a 70s inspired bollywood film, or on a fashion blogger..

…while in Europe they’re the latest trend and were already out on the streets a few months ago.

It doesn’t really matter if they come back or not(although it’d be interesting to see if they do). I recently saw them on Daniel Day-Lewis in “In the name of the Father”, and in the scene above, with The Kinks’ Dedicated Follower of Fashion playing in the background..I was reminded of the man I’d photographed on the street a month ago…and then I thought about Annora..and I knew I had to put all these together..

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Annora D’souza is a 26 year old fashion designer..her cardi is from Splash, top from some street in Bangkok, skinnies from Mango and shoes from Zara.

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..and now I am thinking about Julian Assange.

Sockless

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Rachel Bayros, 26. Fashion model.
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Diva Dhawan, 20. Fashion model.
Top – Zara
Shoes – NY Vintage
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Ibadariakar,24. Stylist.
Dress – Bandra street
Bag – Accessorize
Shoes – Nike
Belt – piece of cloth
Brooch – Something Special, Bandra

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Sailex Ngairangbam, 26. Fashion Designer

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Prapti,25. Designer(?)
Top – thrifted
Necklace – BR jewellers, Bandra
Pants – street
Shoes- Something Special, Bandra
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Malini Banerji, Fashion Editor.
Blue denim oversized shirt is from Benetton, embellished skirt from Mango.

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Mohan Neelakantan, 43. Fashion Director.
Scarf – from some place in Kolkata
Kurta – Abraham & Thakore
Chappals – 8years old, by Manish Malhotra for Metro..”they got ruined during a shoot so I kept them.”
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Sameer Reddy, 31. New York Times.
Tee- Zegna
Pants – thrifted
Shoes – from a village in Spain

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If you own a rug you own too much.
-Jack Kerouac

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Photos from streets and fashion weeks.