Alisha Batth, 22. Musician. Photographed at NH 7.

I really like this cover by her. Check rest of her videos here+an old interview here.

Stanley Pinto, 68.

Rajeev Sethi. “Rajeev Sethi is noted internationally for his innovative contribution to preserving and celebrating India’s cultural heritage…His formative years were spent in Paris working with Pierre Cardin…/ is the first Asian artist chosen by Louis Vuitton to create special window installations across the globe…/was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1985, Read more here.

Kapil Sibal; The Enemy. He read out poetry he wrote mostly on his cell phone and  while traveling on airplanes. Most people I know attended this so they could secure seats for Tarun Tejpal who was speaking next.

The Stereotype.

There is an eclectic mix of people from all over; artists, poets, writers, intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, serious journalists, idlers, socialites…pretty much everybody. I don’t know many of these men. It’d be great if somebody, anybody, could point out who’s who so I could tag them.

Raghav Chanana, actor.

It’s been difficult to find traditionally dressed young men but I’m looking; two more days to go.

Oprah was there today; I was nursing a mild hangover so I missed seeing her. Running to the venue now. Hoping to catch Ondaatje and Mohammed Hanif.

That’s Vidya Balan on the cover as a vamp inspired by her character Silk Smitha in The Dirty Picture.

Photos: My first photo in McLeodGanj; the town; Tibetan boy on Temple road.

“Photographing street fashion started as a weekend thing for me on a trip to McLeodGanj, Dharamsala. I’d gone there to volunteer for 2 months; ended up staying for 4. I was teaching at one of the centers that work towards cultural rehabilitation of the Tibetan refugees, and every week I had evenings & weekends to kill. I would sit by the sidewalk and take photos….

I’m often asked why I photograph the kind of people that I do. I don’t think I’m looking for anything in particular. I guess I just want to make good looking photos that might be socially & culturally relevant. At the same time I’m also taking photos for the sake of personal documentation. Conflict.

Photos: Girls of Summer | Masoom Minawala, Fashion blogger.
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Bollywood:The biggest trendsetter in India.
Undoubtedly, Bollywood hero is the ultimate fashion idol for the common man whose style inspirations, conscious or not, are Bollywood films. For instance, men wearing shirts unbuttoned with their chests exposed, with or without accessories, is the most common trend seen on the Indian street Romeo, on the “Indian MTV” niche, and on the ardent Bollywood fans.

Some shops in small towns were still selling FRIEND caps from Maine Pyar Kiya & friendship bands from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Clearly, these Bollywood films still had an impact on the local fashion a decade or two later. In a few towns, men were wearing skinny jeans-not a Bollywood inspiration & the only digression-possibly a remnant of the skinny jeans trend that became rampant when some Indian denim brands(I worked for one from 07 to 09) launched their skinnies/slimfits in 2007-08. A shopkeeper in Bareilly who stocks skinnies for men says his contacts in Delhi, where the stock comes from, tell him what’s in.

Photos: Boys in Aurangabad; boys on Khar Danda, Bombay.

Also, there was, and perhaps still is, that time where masses in urban sphere related colours to sexuality. A guy wearing pink would be instantly tagged as ‘gay.’ This mindset is yet to reach small towns. In Aurangabad and other similar towns, men wore pink shirts and walked around holding hands. (related: Stuff Indians Like #170: Holding hands).

I think the notion of relating colors to sexuality lies somewhere in the process of: observing > emulating > forming opinion > accepting/discarding. These small towns seemed to have no such process. So while there is observation and emulation, the lack of opinion building, its consequent acceptance/rejection & blind aping makes Bollywood the biggest fashion trend.

Photos: Hoardings in Aurangabad(on a street +outside a men’s gym).
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Why runway trends don’t permeate to mass fashion in India?
And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. Anand Bhushan quotes Miranda Priestly and adds, “We don’t imitate runway but Bollywood. Remember the C-O-O-L neck chains of SRK…?”

Bandana says in an interview, “Bollywood is by far the biggest marketing tool for anything that you do in India.” Fashion, sadly, has to go through Bollywood if it has to reach the masses. I’m going to digress here. Does the common man follow Indian runway fashion? Where is the vision and interest of the masses? Is there even a need for Indian runway trends to reach masses?

For a long time, I used to think runway trends don’t reach masses because there are no great Indian high street brands like Zara that may bring the runway fashion to masses for cheap. Isha Bhansali, stylist at Femina(studied fashion forecasting at LCF in 06) says, “runway trends don’t go mass because there is no link between Indian high street fashion and Indian fashion on the runways unlike markets abroad. Just how Zara follows catwalk to boardroom procedure…Indian high street labels like Chemistry do not do that with catwalk; they follow international high street.

About two years ago, I read a book called Ramp Up by Hindol Sengupta. Somewhere in it he blames the designers. “Unfortunately the appeal remains niche and confined as designers make little effort to really reach out to a wider consumer base. In many ways, runway fashion is the circus of the rich but that’s true for perhaps the entire high-end leisure industry. The thing about the clothes industry is that unlike caviar farming or customised jets, it does not necessarily have to be elitist. The young with dispensable incomes should be addressed by these designers.”

But if designers don’t want to do so, it should be alright. Anand says, ”I design for a niche market. These are the mega mansions one would expect out of a luxury label. I don’t want the world to own my clothes but crave in for a desire to own one. Restraining the supply chain in essential.”

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Trends in small towns
It’s impossible to find an urban middle class person in a small town(or even in a big city?) wearing the same piece of clothing – branded or not – as a rickshaw puller. Limited perspectives I guess – not wanting to be seen wearing the same scarf as a rickshaw puller, irrespective of how it looks.

In these towns, clothing style of regular working class people going about their daily jobs seemed completely effortless & practical. From the old town in Jodhpur to the streets of Shillong-great style is pretty much everywhere. David Abraham agrees and says, “Often the most beautiful textiles and clothing are worn by the simplest and the poorest in our society. And with great style.” In Salem I found an abundance of men clad in madras checks lungis. IOU- a brand based in Spain – makes all its clothes out of these madras checks crediting everybody involved-particularly their karigars. (watch their 3 min video). I bought a piece myself, made a jacket out of it for a friend, and photographed it on her. It’s kind of ill fitting..a bit of alteration is required..the lining needs to be changed.
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Photos: Man in Ellampillai, Salem; Paloma Monnappa in Bombay.
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In Asansol, I liked what the daily wage workers wore; Lungis combined with gamcchas, mostly worn out of practicality & necessity. While in Jodhpur, men wore colorful turbans with buttoned-up shirts, tailored jackets with dhotis, and even some jewellery. Women wore vivid saris and plenty of jewelry. Not so surprisingly, Shillong was full of hipsters, unlike any other part of mainstream India. For most, the influences varied from Korean pop stars, to Japanese films, to the regular American sitcoms and music videos…

Photos: Man/Woman in Jodhpur; Old city near the Mehrengarh Fort.
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Connecting street style and fashion trends. I am not looking out to do that ever. Sometimes the connection presents itself+ there are hundreds of fashion blogs that talk about trends and styles, upload photos from fashion shows, scans from magazines, etc. and just browsing through them occasionally is good enough to make connections even if you don’t intend to. You can see backstage photos from Missoni’s show or spend hours browsing through lookbook and compare it with what you have seen locally.

Photos: a fashion writer for NYT at Lakme Fashion Week; man in Aurangabad.

I found the scoop neck tee & cotton pants worn by working class men in all four small towns I went to. The pants were selling on the streets for about rs80. I picked a pair and photographed them on a friend.

Photos: Man in Aurangabad; Katarina Levshova, fashion model in Bombay.

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Photos: Torn. Ekta Rajani, senior fashion editor Grazia; drifter in Shillong.
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Photos: Sacha the Shopkeeper at LFW; man in Salem.
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Experiences.
Taking photos on the street is a bit tedious. People around have different reactions to it.
I was once detained & questioned for two hours by cops in Aurangabad as I was taking photographs inside the High Court premises(I was sitting in an open space for 40 minutes in the parking area.) It was a two hour long ordeal during which they cross checked with my employee for this particular project, made me delete all the photos, took photocopies of my passport, before finally letting me go. I made a copy of the photos before deleting; that also implied the entire ordeal was pointless.

In Salem, I was taking photos in front of a Church; the cops asked for an id. They told my cab driver in Tamil that my visiting card seemed “not genuine” because it didn’t say I was a photographer & didn’t have my house address. Asked me to leave. The visiting card reads: “wearabout.wordpress.com – documenting street fashion & individual style in India,” with just my name+ phone number.

I was mobbed in a small clothes market in Bareilly. In five minutes there were about twenty people around me. People saw the camera and wanted me to take their photos. They were genuinely intrigued. I fed them the information they wanted but lost a lot of daylight.

Once I was followed by two drunk men who first asked me to take their photos..then wanted money and the camera; almost a scuffle there but it was sorted.

In more tourist-drawn places like Dharamsala/Jodhpur it’s easy if you’re a photographer. People are used to photographers and they don’t really care. But in smaller towns-that are not quite on the tourist radar-it’s a bit difficult to manage a single photograph without drawing some sort of attention.

Shillong was awesome. I stayed there with an amazing family of 5(including a dog). I should be going back there again this year.

Photos: Recycling girls & Paloma Monnappa.
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Indian streets are stimulating, colourful, unpredictable, and make for great photos.

Documenting streets – to stand in one spot for hours doing nothing, observing – needs some patience. People talk, linger, stare, get mad. It’s inevitable. But it is nothing out of the ordinary.”

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Next up: Preview of the project I was working on during Nov-Dec. I did street casting + a few other things for a TVC.  Below is a pre-preview(?); the lady is Priyanka Bose(actress).

Dal is a Central St. Martins graduate based in London; works as as a writer, consultant, and is the editor of bi-annual b Magazine. He contributes regularly to Vogue India, Metal magazine and various independent titles; check his work here. Likes beanie hats, 2 pound pandas, and exotic Bollywood posters.

“During my recent trip to Bombay and Delhi it struck me, how much the kind of clothes I wear are really versions of the traditional Indian kurta. Some of the cotton shirts I own from Dries van Noten for example claim to take their inspiration from vintage military uniforms, but to me, the reference, the pleat and the placket always say India. Wearing a thick cotton, round neck smock by Austrian designer Berthold, I still feel I’m wearing an urbanised version of the kurtas I saw on so many men pounding the streets of India.

My parents are both first generation East African Indians and my family moved to the UK in the sixties, making my relationship to India something I had never romanticised.

I think that the kurta is a symbol of cultural defiance. While growing up, traditional Indian dress was only worn during annual visits to the Gurdwara.

I don’t come from a family tied down by its cultural roots. To be honest, the way I dress is probably more of a result of my disdain for shopping than anything else!

The way I dress has evolved since my days at college – I have a very limited number of styles and stick to what I know feels comfortable; which is always oversized shirts and jumpers in winter, cropped, pleated trousers and slippers. It’s a style I have grown into and a uniform I don’t often have to think about.”
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All photos taken during Oct ’11 while I was working with him on a project for 10 days in Bombay & Delhi.

b magazine 5th issue. Read more about it here.

Dal is a preparation of lentils; regularly eaten with rice and roti. Dal is a lake in Srinagar. DalDal in hindi means swamp.

Eating off a waste pile. Talking to self. Photographed in Asansol.

Eating off the platform. Talking to self. Photographed at VT station, Bombay.

Staring at nothing. Talking to self. Photographed in Yercaud, Salem.

“When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
-Mark Twain

Merry Christmas everybody!

“Inspired by natural structures and emotional landscapes, Central St. Martins graduate Mia Morikawa learned a language of visual poetry while climbing mountains and crossing canyons. A self professed warrior of beauty: she is currently living, loving, & laughing in amazing India. Her label, Kapow Wow mainly produces constructed textile pieces which are exquisitely organic in form and spirit.”

28 years old. Born in Japan; grew up in America. Studied Communication Design at CSM, London. Makes most of her own stuff, but also likes picking up vintage, inexpensive, and obscure clothing from random places while travelling.

“I have spent close to 2 years in India over several visits over the past 3 years. My work takes me to a lot of places around the world and India seems to call me back often now, but I don’t really try and time it with fashion week. Though that’s a nice time to come since there is a lot of action at the studios of my collaborators in India. Berlin is my base for the moment.

Delhi is where my immediate friends and collaborators are in India, so it’s kind of become home. I find Delhi quite inspiring for my sourcing projects, though I feel far more relaxed in rural settings.

Making accessories and cooking are both equally engaging activities. I spend a lot of time just exploring ideas for experiences, spaces, and activities that are sensorial and in touch with nature. Fashion and food both have deep dependencies on nature’s wealth and I find myself in these two worlds quite often now because of that.”

Photographed in October at Wills India Fashion Week.

Christina Hanghal.25. Fashion designer/stylist. Originally from Shillong..been in Bombay for 2 years. Was one of the Indian Project Runway winners in 2010. Shares her birthday with Christian Dior.

As a kid she’d cut clothes to dress barbies up in outlandish garments, and make them walk on imaginary runways on the floor. Her first paid job was a month long housekeeping stint at home with her 4 sisters; she was about 10.

Likes strong chai, cigarettes, and snow. Hates restaurant meals. Blinks a lot. Her apartment turns in to a club post 1a.m. on the weekends. Will do anything to find the right window curtains…

Studied B.A. Literature in LSR followed by M.A in Film Making at Jamia in Delhi. Her final student film was called “A Little Death”. It dealt with the nature of sexuality. It had no dialogues but cut to the Igor Stravinsky’s magnum opus “The Rite of Spring”. Worked at Discovery Channel. At some point discovered Fashion & Surrealism by Richard Martin which gave her a new direction..

Self-funded her first few trips to international fashion weeks in London, Johannesburg, etc. Made copious amounts of  notes standing in the last row and got paid a measly 2000Rs. for each story….But the ghosts of Cecil Beaton, Sarte, Fellini, Coco Chanel, and Stravinsky protected her…

She hosted the first fashion programme on Indian TV called Simply Style. Also hosted the first fashion webisodes in India on lfwtv. She’s written a book that’s now translated in Marathi, Gujarati, and Italian called “A Little Guide to Italy”. Would like to write for an Indian newspaper one day; is a regular contributor to IHT and NYT. Her daily reads are Newsweek. New Yorker. Another Magazine. Economist. Moreintelligentlife(THE BEST). MumbaiBoss. BOF.

Has a nine year old daughter named Mai-rah (named after her favourite book Myra Breckinridge) whose appearance she compares to that of a cheeky street kid. Her favourite gift to her friends is the docu Century of Self. Can complete the Rubik cube in two minutes flat. Collects stones from historic places.

Calls Dorothy Parker her priestess of self-deprecation. Is single and happy. Wants to start her own blog once she reaches 5000 twitter followers…

“I flutter in many ways but I fly in none… The older I grow the truer it sounds.”
-Bandana Tewari. Lingering in the 30s. Fashion Director, Vogue India.

Picking up from where I’d left last…above: A cart pusher in Asansol.

The term “gamchha” derives from the Bengali ga mochha, which means wiping (the) body-local term for a sweat towel. Gamchhas are most commonly found in check and striped patterns of red, orange, green, blue…They’re are also worn as lungis, belts, turbans – styles derived from practicality & nature of tasks the wearer is involved in.

I found myself a spot in the middle of a Y junction in front of a closed shop. There was a small tea shop 10 yards ahead. Idlers there would occasionally look in my direction, talk amongst themselves, and at times smile at me. A little disconcerting. Two people came to me and asked “newspaper?” I said yes. (A lie, obviously.) After a while one of the workers came and sat next to me but didn’t say a word. Often he would smile and try to look into the camera.

We talked for a bit. Soon he got called out for some work and left. I sat there for two hours till I started to see the same men. I was finding it awkward to get up as I was all comfortable in the awkwardness of being in the middle of those occasional stares for long. Eventually I got up, went straight to the tea shop…had a cup of tea, a smoke, & said thank you to whoever listened..

Below:Rickshaw-walas in the main market.

All photos from my July trip.

A gamccha costs 30Indian Rupees(less than a dollar).

Gitanjali Dang. Writer/Curator from Bombay.

Rushad Kalyanivala from Pune.

I’m at NH7 Weekender - the happiest music festival in India. All the cool kids from Pune & Bombay are here. It’s AWESOME! If it went forever, I could be here forever.

These photos are from the 2nd day. In 2 hours I took about 300 photos. I came here only for a day..but now I’m staying for another.
P.S. Big thanks to people at the information desk & Neysa Mendes for giving me a media pass.

NH7 Weekender documentary from last year.