In Conversation with Imsu. Part 1.

Last I blogged about Imsu was a year ago when she was oding on ASOS; she still is. Right after that I lost the sense of time. Photos are from then and the conversation is recent.

wearing thrifted sweater and beanie, dooney and bourke bag.

Where did you grow up? How was your childhood like?
I was born and brought up in Kohima, Nagaland till I was 9 and then I spent the next 10 years of my life in a boarding school [The Assam Valley School]. We had our occasional holiday breaks but I’d say that I ‘grew up’  in school. I don’t really have the words to describe how my childhood was, but I can just put it like this — I wouldn’t mind going through the whole thing again.

What did you do during your holiday breaks?
Nothing much. I just relaxed at home and indulged in a lot of non-veg home food.

wearing asos cape & so you shoes.

A year ago, you weren’t posting as regularly as now + you also got your own domain for your blog. Does it mean you’re taking blogging more seriously?
Hmm…it’s an on and off thing. The thing is that I would love to take my blog seriously but with college/exams/entrance tests it gets a little difficult. I seem to have a lot those phases where I don’t feel like blogging. The worst part is that I am not really self-motivating…I draw inspiration from the things I see. Getting my own domain wasn’t anything major, really. I was just not happy with my previous url.

Are you still taking photos from Sony Cyber-shot? And who takes your photos?
Nah. I am now using a Nikon D3100. My boyfriend takes most of my pictures but since he’s not in Delhi anymore, I guess I’ll have to ask my cousins or friends.

Crazy North Delhi kids.

You started a blog shop. What are you selling and how does one buy from your shop?
I mostly sell stuff(mostly shoes) that is either new or hardly worn and sometimes I take pre-orders from people who want to order shoes in bulk with me so that the shipping cost is reduced. People can email me with the product code. Once they’ve confirmed, I give them my account details and ask them to transfer the amount. I then place the order for the product, wait for it to arrive, and then finally send it to them.

So you buy this ‘new’ stuff specifically to sell and not something you’d want to wear?
Not really, but yeah, I usually don’t buy stuff for myself if I have to sell it…but I wouldn’t mind keeping it for myself either.

wearing promod blazer, dress(gifted), jessica simpson danys, hidesign bag

I am going to Nagaland sometime this year to take photos for my blog. What places should I go to?
Dimapur/Kohima. You could try going to Spirit of Faith Church on a Sunday. You’ll find everybody dressed well.

And if you had to choose one place out of Dimapur & Kohima, one that is more experimental with clothes/fashion, which one would it be?
Dimapur for sure. Most of the ‘stylish’ people in Kohima tend to stay indoors. But you could still go. It’s only 2 hours away from Dimapur.

I heard Dimapur is mostly about night life. All the ‘cool’ people only get out in the night.
Haha. Maybe.

What do you miss about home(Kohima)?
Hills. Nice weather. And home food. And my dog.

To be continued…

Photographed in Outram Lines, New Delhi in Feb 2011.

A fashion blogger quits..

So after about 8 months of blogging Oona finally discontinued her blog. Her reasons were plenty: bitchy friends of friends, over inquisitive relatives, creepy stalkers, lack of shoes…

Photos taken in Hauz Khas Village, Delhi.

“So it all started when my cousin started publicising my blog on her facebook… and her mom saw it. Thereafter, the family got to know about it, then more relatives, distant ones, older ones, and then a friend of a friend’s father who’s a government official showed my blog to his colleagues at work one of whom was a client of my mother’s. He then sends her a text saying that I’m very beautiful and that I have a very good sense of dressing. SHE FREAKED!  I FREAKED!

Also, I got the feeling that my family and friends and randoms who don’t even know me tended to think of me as a narcissistic, materialistic dumb fashionista. Then..there were some people bitching about me..saying stuff like “OMG she wears peacock feathers,” and stuff like, “Oh and she’s really snobbish and she really dresses up for college and that one time she wore heels to college…” Which is all untrue, obviously, though I was fine with all that bitchiness…but eventually, with all other stuff together, I was exhausted.

And now that I look back, I do feel like I was one helluva materialistic girl. I mean, I would spend most of my time online making wishlists, checking out designers’ lookbooks, reading international fashion blogs, and saving/thinking of ways to procure and invest on quality pieces from my college pocket money.”

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Oona has a new blog now where she takes her own photos…writes about travel along with occasional personal style posts & stuff she likes. She was on a family trip this time..covered a lot of USA and a bit of Europe….

above: photos by Oona..via her new blog.

However, when the photos from this holiday trip are done with, it’d be interesting to see where she goes & what goes on her blog.

“Oona was my junior in school. I don’t think you could have called us friends or anything but even on leaving and being 2/3 years older and senior, you couldn’t forget Oona. We shared our mutual love for Harry Potter & some other stuff.
In the movie Funny Face, Kay Thompson’s character Maggie Prescott is a fashion editor who is on the lookout for a new face, a new inspiration. She uses a word to describe all of that as ‘pizazz’ which literally comes to mean spirited, flamboyant, with dazzling style, flair and energy. That’s everything that Oona is.
When I think about Oona, there is this one quote from Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World that swims around: ‘Wisest is she who knows what she does not know,’ because sometimes [mostly always] I don’t think even she realizes the magnetic force that she is.”
-Lesly from Lazymanxcat

Right now she’s de-cluttering her life…donating every single piece from her last year’s wardrobe..which probably means all that she’s wearing in this post is going away. 

Introducing Imsu

Likes bad boys, loves Adele; is ODing on ASOS; hates giveaways because she rarely wins, but never misses taking part in any; stuffs herself with digestive biscuits while running out of patience; watches everything that comes on Star World; compromises on other household necessities to buy shoes; loves veg Wai-Wai, Chaat Masala, and black salt; feels healthy when she eats Kimbap; is immune to caffeine; needs non-sleeping pills to keep her awake in the class; Jack Johnson’s voice makes her all gooey…

..believes in online shopping, and forgets about potatoes on stove because of Twitter.

Imsu,20. Student/Fashion blogger

Is wearing: H&M Military Jacket from ebay.co.uk, Dad’s Rayban Wayfarers, thrifted top, label-less jeans, booties from Missguided, and ASOS pendant.

..likes the concept of sitting in her pajamas at home, browsing through clothes/shoes, and having them delivered to her doorstep versus the ordeal of mall shopping, going through hundreds of stores, only to end up with nothing!

..ASOS Tops is the most viewed webpage on her browser, beating Facebook, Twitter, and eBay…to be cont.

A fashion blogger extraordinaire.

…Oona, from The Billet Doux(update:she discontinued her blog), never eats breakfast because she gets up too late, starts her day with chips & chocolate tart from her college canteen; reads travel magazines and fashion blogs; hates rotis and green vegetables; misses her Swedish boyfriend, and the thunderstorms back in Assam; does not have an opinion about Chuck Palahniuk, likes dubstep, loves Abbey Lee Kershaw and anything Céline.
I’m under pressure to write anything more because she writes too well.

On a grey warm winter day in Delhi..Oona is wearing Promod grey lace dress, Zara cream belt, sequinned shrug, and grey flats from Bangkok.

As famous as God.

Time was running out. The light was dying. It was roughly about 7p.m. I wanted to shoot this one against Elvis at the Wall project. A quiff for a quiff…but we were too far to make it. The light was dying.

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“Mostly my hair styles are inspired by Victoria Beckham, Rihanna & Lady Gaga. A haircut for me is much more than just a hair cut. It’s about personality, a new upgraded look, a new creation.
I am very observant of style. I notice what people are wearing. Celebrities, designers, people at parties and shoots in magazines like Vogue do inspire my style but at the end of the day I have my own style and if inspired by anyone or anything, I do modify it and make myself look as original and unique as possible.”

“I am a man and I do shop from men’s wear but most of my shopping is done from women’s wear because there is a lot more variety and most men’s wear brands don’t have my size.”

I grew up in Mumbai. As a kid I wanted to become a pilot, a doctor, a dentist. In the 4th grade I was sent to a boarding school in Ooty for 6 years. I had an amazing childhood and I thank my parents for that. They gave me possibly everything I ever wanted. I am very spoilt but I know my responsibilities. I think that I’d been through a hell of a lot at a very young age and I feel I’ve grown much faster than other people my age. As a child, I was both artistic and sporty. I was good at painting, drawing & craft. I was also an athlete and my main event was hurdles. I won Gold in 110m hurdles, Silver in 100m sprint and a Bronze in 4x100m relay. I was chosen for inter-school athletics. I’ve played other sports like football and basketball as well but this was all years ago. As time passed by, I grew up, I began to identify with my self and my interests changed.

A few years ago, M.A.C store had just opened near my house and I decided to check it out and buy some products for myself. I ended up befriending the artists working there. I would hang out with them sometimes and observe them doing make-up on customers. They would also practice on me and teach me the right basics. This how I first took an interest and learnt my basics in make-up. I realized that I really liked the art and also I was quite good at it. After a while, I began doing it on a professional level. A little later, I also started doing hair & styling as it seemed interesting and gradually i ended up doing it professionally.

Post my course in fashion at London college of fashion, I plan to become a fashion designer and work in London for a few years. Eventually, I want to set up my own label and settle down in India. I have big dreams. I want to create a new fashion revolution. I want to change the way men dress and invent a new era altogether, and take couture to another level. I’d like to be known as a fashion legend – The Diva. I also have plans about doing a movie or a music album some day. Not that I want to take any of that up professionally but I just want to do it for the heck of it and the experience. There was a time when I wrote around 21 songs with the hope of launching a music album. The songs were pretty nice and I selected 12 songs to finally make an album of but it didn’t work out maybe because I couldn’t get along with my director. Ha-ha!

I just want to be huge…like Madonna says, “I won’t be happy until I’m as famous as God.“

The luxury of not caring

I did some research and I realized Koos Faber, Rad Hourani, Steve Strange, Klaus Nomi, Ville valo, Michael monroe & Helmut Newton all have three things in common – They’re all men, icons of androgyny in modern culture and not from India. Then I came across some small text written by who knows who, that  goes like, “Androgyny was found to be more predominant in certain traditional cultures such as India, was particularly predominant among Indian males, and it wasn’t a product of western culture.

So now I’m wondering where’re all the androgynous Indian men? Not like there is a database for them but I performed a search and found nothing. I can’t think of any Indian actors or musicians. But there’re some designers. (names please?). My knowledge about designers is limited and maybe they’re not talked about in this context but I’d like to know if you know. Quite a long introduction, but that was all to say that I found an androgynous person. And it’s a boy!!

Vir is a club kid(with traces of Macaulay Culkin’s character from Party Monster) & an Unidentified Modeling Object in his own right. His hairdo is similar to what Kristen Stewart has been sporting lately and they both are oblivious to this fact. His friends claim he exudes style. People usually confuse him for a girl. I did too.

“Yes that happens a lot and there’s nothing i could do but laugh.”

“Music, film & fashion industries have  always played an influential role in advancing a challenging perspective on human sexuality for modern times. In the 1980s, androgynous musicians — Boy George, David Bowie, and Prince — made headlines as they captured the world’s fascination with sexual ambiguity.”

Somehow, I wish this was true for India as well. I wish the film & music industry could inspire a trend towards self-exploration emphasizing individual freedom and self-realization, blurring the line between feminine and masculine fashion.

“Vir started working as a make-up artist around two and a half years ago and in time, diversified into doing hair and fashion styling because of the demand generated by his friends.

“I did my first make-up assignment for a friend when I was 16. She was going for a birthday party…something pink and silver…is all that i remember of it.”

Vir says, most of his clothes are from Mango because they suit his body type, his style, and are comfortable.

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“An androgynous style would lack an open expression of ‘womanhood’ or ‘manhood’ and would not necessarily accentuate masculine or feminine features but rather celebrate the idea of just being.”

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doo doo doo – doo doo doo doo…you’ve got your mother in a whirl. She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl.

- David Bowie

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Striped shirt > United Colors Of Benetton

High-waist balloon 3/4ths > Mango

Belt > Charles & Keith

Python leather clutch > Aldo

Metal studded blue booties > Nine West

Aviators > Dolce&Gabbana

Vir Shete|Interview

Vir usually wakes up around 12p.m., drinks hot coffee with a cigarette, relaxes with music(current favorite: Rihanna’s rude boy) or talks to a close friend till he is completely awake, spends the day hanging out with friends. Gets home usually by 10p.m. unless he is going out at night. Then, watches a film, talks to a few friends, or surfs the net. Sleeps late..by 3a.m. However, if he had to go for an interview the next day, he probably would avoid doing some of that, and this is what he’d wear.

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Shirt > United Colors Of Benetton

Pants > United Colors Of Benetton

Belt > Dolce&Gabbana

Tweed coat > Mango

Black broken leather shoes > Metro

Sunglasses > Prada

Suede bag > Sisley

Vir Shete|look1

The title is an overused expression that has close to 1 million results on the web and has been used by all fashion publications in every issue that they ever printed…but a title like this is what I needed to avoid spam.

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Vir Shete is a 19 year old make-up artist. He works as a freelancer and this September he will be off to study at London school of fashion. Vir had complete freedom to choose whatever clothes he wanted to be photographed in. My contribution to his looks was through our telephonic conversations which required me to say, “Umm yes, that will be fine. Yes, that too and that too.”

This is first of the 5 looks that defines his wardrobe.

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“I don’t wear make-up on a regular daily basis besides eye-kohl, that too, not always. I’ve worn makeup here to reinforce the look.”

Vir is wearing eye-kohl, has contoured his nose and cheekbones with some bronzer & nude liner on lips to make it look natural. Vir calls this make up his signature style.

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“I would wear this look in the day to meet and chill with friends preferably indoors; at a friend’s place, at a cafe or maybe to do some outdoor day chores.”

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Denim hot pants > Mango

Pink polo t-shirt > Burberry

Beige belt > Gucci

Platform sandals > Some store in Breach Candy, Mumbai

Bag > Louis Vuitton

Sunglasses > Marc Jacobs