F for Fashion

I am currently working on a project that involves styling and fashion designing (will be announcing soon). While trying to explain my ideas to the people involved, I started sketching – which is perhaps the best way to explain your design or look. Shuffling though my sketch book I found some old sketches which I had made. My favourites were Archie, Betty, Veronica and ‘Josie and the Pussycats’. Visualizing playing for a rock band was fun.

Sometimes, sketching helps with writing

One of my first sketches

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Can you see the details? My first encounter with fashion

I have always loved fashion. From playing with a Barbie to throwing tantrums for more clothes to dressing up in my mom’s sari’s and ornaments, I have done it all. One afternoon, when I was around 7, my bestie Marisha, who is a year older, and I were playing and she was dressing me up with whatever we could lay our hands on. I didn’t have a nose piercing that time, and hence we thought let’s make the most of it and on my insistence she shoved a small pearl right into my nostril. We thought, it would suffice as a nose pin. Yes, fashion made us go crazy (and stupid) right from the beginning.

Everybody panicked and my dad made me sneeze by inserting threads and sticks in my nostrils. Thankfully, the pearl came out as I sneezed, but I was dragged to an ENT specialist nevertheless to check for “anything else” that we may have inserted and were scolded for many days to come. Marisha was instructed to keep a “low profile” and just try and avoid crossing paths with my family members till the situation improved. (We still have this mutual understanding, and “sis code”, whenever I mess up)

My mom stopped taking her noon naps as she was afraid to see me looking like this after waking up.

A cowboy in a Pink hat :P

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The miss world with milk teeth

Dont stop posing even if you are crying

So that was my first photo shoot and I rocked it!

Sweet friends Marisha and Priyanka who were forced to dress up and pose

The towel pose

With my lovely ladies

Navratri is coming, and all men (and women) must dance or die

With mom and dad

My love for fashion only increased as I grew up and when I was in 12^th Science, I brought NID entrance form. My parents made me drop the idea like a hot brick telling me I was very late to start preparing. I am glad as if I had started preparing; I would have not only ever made it but would have also failed in 12^th.

The love affair with fashion continued. Just like true love which finds a way through thick and thin, it continued even though I was studying computers. I would read a lot on styling and experiment even more. All the tailors in Ahmedabad hate me, and some don’t even let me enter their shops. As I can’t afford a stylist (I am always in a dire need for too many clothes), I approach very simple minded tailors and screech my ideas passionately while they helplessly look on without understanding me while also losing other clients. Except for Babubhai, the owner at ‘Challenge Tailors’ who as the name goes, fearlessly takes up the challenges I throw at him.

I marvel at the intricate designs on a Sabyasachi lehenga, love Manish Malhotra’s designs like so many Indian women(he knows how to highlight their best features) and love to read Coco Chanel’s notes. Fashion is not just a word but a lifestyle. A way to express yourself. Like every brand has its story. My favourite is Versace - The Versace logo is a head of Medusa, a Greek woman transformed into a monster by the goddess Athena for her wrongdoings. The Medusa became an iconic motif in fashion as it evoked authority, attractiveness and fatal fascination. While Prada taught us to be devils, ASOS (As Seen On Screen) helped us to imitate the stars. Big or small, every brand resonates with different moods and aspirations. I love reading Elle, Bazaar and Vogue and can endlessly watch FashionTV and can’t stop scrolling down some awesome Instagram accounts high on fashion.

All fell in place when I started blogging and writing for Femina and found a way to express my love, finally.

For me F has always been for fashion.