"I Write This Sitting In The Kitchen Sink"

Well, no, I don't, actually. It's really a rickety chair whose back I've lost any hope of support from, in a shady little Internet cafe somewhere. And I'd be completely won over by my spanking new copy of I Capture The Castle (found seven years after the library from which I first borrowed it refused to let me buy their copy- and I was too gullible to think of just snaffling it anyway), if it wasn't for the fact that it's got one of those movie tie-in covers (which is annoying, even if the movie is reportedly a nice one- I'm fussy about what my book covers look like). But I'm still rather kicked to have my very own copy at last, and still thoroughly charmed by the Mortmain family and its periphera - and I suspect I'm not the only one..

PS: Anyone attempting to place the author might find it helpful to know that she also wrote 101 Dalmatians. I remember liking the Disney movie as a kid, but the book is brilliant too.

Fashion Week Musings, mk. I

Having two fashion weeks happen within about two weeks of each other in the same country might be more than a bit confusing, but I reckon it's good to have more output, not to mention more showing opportunities- especially for young talent. And if one of them, on a whole, turns out to look a bit boring, there's always the other waiting to restore my faith in the future of fashion design in this country. That said, Lakme India Fashion Week (so called to distinguish it from Wills India Fashion Week, which gets held in Delhi- see what I mean about confusing?) this time around has definitely had its standout collections, which I'm going to run mini-posts about in the next week. And the first of these is (drumroll, please):

1. Sabyasachi Mukherjee

This should come as no surprise, really, given my previous assertions of fangirlism for his clothes, but I'm madly in love with the outfit right on top already- the man really does have a knack for getting his presentations right, and gives it all a quality very few Indian designers manage to put across in their clothes- coolness. (the trouble with a lot of clothes made by Indian designers is that they're far too precious- the embroidery, handmadeness and sheer volumes of fabric have, in the past, left me feeling like these aren't really clothes to, say, sit cross-legged on the floor in. I can't say the same of Sabyasachi designs, though- they're as beautifully made as one could possibly want, but the sheer casualness of the styling makes it very easy to imagine these clothes in my life some day (I wish!)). Even if I'm in a bit of a neutrals phase right now, the colours are actually mildly soothing (and it's not as if he can't do clothes without colour. After doing a wildly splashy patchwork-featuring show for his India Fashion Week debut in 2002, his next collection was entirely in shades of white, and it was stunning because everyone else had jumped on the colour bandwagon by then).

And one can't help but love the panache and sexiness (albeit of the non-obvious kind) of the way he mixes it all up- it might be mildly eccentric to some people, but it's an eccentricity that seems entirely natural, and which I could definitely do with- beginning with the models' hairdos (stuck all over with flowers and random things- too bad there weren't any detail shots available), to the layering, to the mixes of prints, all the way down to the clotheslines strung full of clothes and fairy lights above the runway (Rediff said they were "creating the pretty ambience of a modest home in the French countryside.". To which I say: French countryside my foot, every house in India has one or more of them on the balcony- what's wrong with just saying that?). But seriously, they're so pretty..

PS: Getting the pictures together for this post was something of a job, since the only shots of complete collections online seem to be on a pay-to-see website. I honestly can't see why people need to act so pricey about pictures- if Copenhagen and Tokyo Fashion Weeks can put out pictures and videos of shows on their official sites, why can't the same be done here?

Images from the International Herald Tribune, indiwo, bharattextiles.com, and Rediff.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

....but the Olympic torch certainly isn't it...
Image from The Guardian. Sorry, I just thought of the pun and couldn't resist..

Just A Little Personal..And Maybe Political Too

I know I keep saying this to the point where it gets nauseating, but being crazily busy and not having a functional Internet connection at home is really not good for the update status of this blog- forget posting, I can't even comment on other blogs at the usual rate (which makes one feel a bit like a kid being given sweets and told not to take off the wrappers), and it's more than a little frustrating when my brain refuses to go into 'compose post' mode even when I do have a folder full of Fashion Week (Lakme India Fashion Week, this time around) pictures sitting in My Pictures (incidentally, why is it so difficult to find pictures of entire collections online? Or anywhere? I've caught the occasional video and bits and pieces off the news, but the only site that seems to have got proper sets of pictures requires a paid subscription at $2 a week, which might be handy for an actual fashion journalist but doesn't help a girl like me.. (though I must say, Sabyasachi and Kiran Uttam Ghosh's collections do look excellent, which wasn't unexpected at all. I'll put up a review...when my head is clear enough to think out a post, that is).

The real-world news has also been a bit of a preoccupation of late, not least because strange things have happened not too far away from where I am, beginning with Tibetan protesters storming the Chinese embassy in New Delhi around three weeks ago (actually, with riots in Tibet before that), to the Olympic flame getting put out in Paris the day before yesterday (though a lot of people seem to think protesters have no business being around anything to do with the Olympics, IMHO it'd be hypocritical if they've banged on and on about human rights and how important they are to Olympic ideals and then effectively told the protesters to shut up about violations of those very human rights. And as for the Chinese government's response to the entire issue, I'll only say this much: calling the Dalai Lama, of all people, a 'terrorist jackal' is not exactly reasonable).

On a side note, a pickaxe needs to be taken to the head of the idiot in the cubicle next to mine, who thinks it's a good idea to entertain himself by blasting some godawful Bollywood remix off his phone while I draft documents (Bollywood and the travesties it calls 'music' are, IMO, the scourge of modern-day India. And let me not even get into the frequent stupidity and misogyny of the films themselves, or how utterly repellent the idea that it represents Indian cinema in its entirety is).

I just realised, I've rambled like nobody's business, and am risking being called a few names for the subject matter of the last two paragraphs. This isn't a substitute space for Nonsense on Stilts, my old (and boringly personal) blog, but right now I am too tired to care. Besides, who says a girl who likes clothes can't have an opinion on things that aren't fashion/pop culture-related?

Pleats, If You Please

Pleated skirts are among my greatest sartorial bogeymen- I spent the better part of thirteen years in them for school and got really sick and tired of anything that looked even vaguely like uniform, but lately I've been missing the swinginess of my old P.E. skirts, and when I tried on my cousin's skirt (she's seventeen and goes to the same school as I did), it actually didn't look half bad. Which is a relief, because I'm mildly tired of pencil-shaped, restrictive things, and my beloved old blue ankle-length skirt from the Tibetan market in Bangalore has been nearly worn to death. Also, I suspect I might just be better at avoiding boredom (and overt schoolgirliness) now than five years ago: also, they don't have to be schoolgirly- I certainly shan't be wearing them with uniform-esque things, and I really want some pleat-edges to fiddle with when I'm sitting down (something I did almost all the time in school)..

Frippery And Suchlike

Ivory Recycled Poppy Tail Holder
Recycled Poppy Bobbypin Set
Moon Rabbit Necklace

Decorating myself is not one of my strong points. Not with jewellery, anyway- earrings and bracelets are things I find annoying, and I haven't really found a decent replacement for my favourite pendant- a bunch of purple glass grapes with two green glass leaves- yet another lost bit of cupboard love. However, the embargo on decoration doesn't extend to my hair, which, being abundant and black, makes a decentish background for nearly any silly hairclips/hair ties/pins I choose to put into it. And given that I find one of my silly sartorial cravings coming on (as recorded here), only this time what I really want is a wild, vaguely wood-maidenish sort of floral wreath (less Louis Vuitton and more Art Nouveau fairy), and since I can't really walk around with an actual object of that kind in my hair (this not being adventurous London, but Delhi where creepy men stare), a few pretty hair ornaments by Foundling seem like a viable, mildly toned-down alternative. I'm rather enamoured of the shop's name and contents- and I do fancy everything with a poppy on it and the Moon Rabbit necklace (reminds me of that old story about the rabbit in the moon)...

All pictures from Foundling's Etsy store.

W00t!

I actually didn't believe my eyes last night, when I read the news that Rei Kawakubo (she of whom I am an eternal fangirl) was actually doing a diffusion range for H&M, which more or less covers everything possible for any collection- from menswear down to perfume*- and I know none of it is ever going to find its way to where I am (off-topic rant: why on earth does shopping for non-ethnic clothes that won't break the bank, always suck? Screw BRIC and the 'emerging markets' faff, just give me something decent to buy, dammit!), but it's still fairly thrilling nevertheless- I mean, expecting avant-gardeism of the kind so often seen on the Comme runways isn't rational, but I'd love to see a few things in the line of the 'Play' t-shirts (last picture). And it's not as if it can't work, I'm actually pretty optimistic..so leaving off with some pictures might just be the way to go..

I'm also sorry for not having posted for several days...but things are mad here.

EDIT: I've just been told I don't really have tomorrow off, after all. I do feel so gypped, particularly considering the fact that my lunch plans (involving a really good friend I haven't seen for nearly eight months now) will have to go in the bin.

*it's only the last one that gives me pause.

pictures from nytimes