Dark Optical Splendour....

Winner of the "My Sunglasses, My Style"  Contest at Blogadda 
 

Audrey Hepburn is supposed to have said ," My look is attainable. Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large sunglasses, and the little sleeveless dresses ..."


Hmmm. Excuse me.


That's because she never met someone like my late mother-in-law.  

There is nothing more impressive than a tall lady , with a shining translucent complexion, wearing a traditional earth colored kanjivaram saree, with a stubborn white cotton blouse, a long mangalsutra round her neck, diamonds in the ears, a decent size tikka on the forehead and a set of brown  black mafia style (the type Karunanidhi wears) sunglasses properly set on her eyes.  I have always loved these kind of sunglasses, and there was nothing more regal when she wore them, shortly after her cataract operation in her 70's , in the non-phaco-emulsification surgery days, when you emerged from the OT is sunglasses and kept them on for 10 days in hospital, while the stitches dried.

Perfect for hiding your eyes from visitors, one could simply take a nap, when faced with visitors you didn't like, and no one found out if you opened your eyes by mistake; you could be looking at the door and no one could see that you were not listening to them.  These glasses really suit everyone, right from the three year old grandson who wants to try them on, to the daughter and daughter-in-law wanting to protect their contact lenses. The frames never went out of fashion, and will always keep coming back if they do. 

 And GKB opticals has these !  Model  SUNDRIVE M-001 0 ! 

 You can even use them after the cataract has healed .  In alternate use, such glasses fit firmly behind, over the bun of your hair, and provide a firm basis for anchoring all the lovely jasmine gajras  on special occasions. 

  Naturally, carrying them in dabbas that click shut is passé.   Authentic heirloom white blouses, often had a pocket at the lower part of the blouse near your waist.  (Very thoughtful, and something all current designers need to note , busy as they are deleting shoulders etc from blouses....).  These glasses maybe smartly kept in these pockets, and pulled out at a moments notice to examine someone's new necklace or jari embroidery. Alternatively, they do set off a lovely Kanjeevaram when tucked in at the waist,  say, next to a bunch of keys. Highly recommended  especially for senior ladies, not obsessed or impressed with the current rimless mania.     


While these may be fine for everyday wear, it is imperative to have a special pair for special occasions,  like attending the afternoon bhishi of the colony ladies, Mrs. H's  daughter's engagement celebration  or, say,  a special meeting .   Mumbai being very dusty, thanks to the constant digging of roads, one must have adequate protection while zooming around in autos. You need sideways protection in glasses as the ricks are open on the sides.  

What better than these OAKLEY FatCat 03-358 model glasses  !  In a special wrap-around styling......

One has to change with the times . These glasses come, in what one may call, dainty ladies' colors.  They provide amazing protection around the sides of the eyes, preventing you from taking a sideways look at, say,  what Mrs so-and-so. next to you,  was looking at  in the jeweller's shop. It also keeps your eyes protected from all the dust coming in from the sides.  

These glasses, when combined with mangalsutra style holders that  attach   to the frame on the side, ensure that even the biggest pothole faced by you in a rickshaw, will not damage and dislodge your glasses. They will simply  slip down and rest on the leheriya border of your modern saree.  You may of course, have chains in pure gold and tiny pearls anchored to your glasses  for special occasions. Given our traditions in gems and jewellery,  really, I mean the sky is the limit then for using these fine set of glasses .  

 

These glasses have inbuilt decoration on the sides, which lends itself to further innovative applications . Since these are wrap-around glasses ,  it is natural that one may want to wear them around the neck, as a choker occasionally.  For those with daughters approaching size zero, a la Kareena Kapur ,  the possibility of using these amazing glasses as a cummerbund in the next Lakme India Fashion Week, cannot be denied. 

Of course, there are several other styles  that  would look good  too. There is a lot of variety today in clothes and hairdo's . Sometimes, the entire hairstyle consists of leaving the hair open, like we did after a head bath on Sundays in our childhood 50 years ago !.  In this fast life, all that flying hair, would really go well with Rayban aviator style glasses. You know, you may not fly, but your hair does, as you rush about. It always impresses the cops if they happen to catch you for going through a red signal.  Makes you look kind of corporate and busy. And maybe Page 3. 


 And yet, I believe in the here and now . In being yourself, and not giving in to fashion diktats. And having multiple uses of things like sunglasses.  

But I will let you in on a secret.  What I really hanker after are those clip-on type attachments that one may wear on ordinary prescription glasses. My late father had one of those, and I've always wanted to kind of turn them up (like a cap visor) , say while checking a bill or something, then click them down, and then leave in dark eyed splendor for the next appointment.


What to do ! We old folks are, as they say these days, like that only!

 

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com brought to you by GKB Optical Sunglasses

Undemocratic fashion.

Fashion : NOT (of the people, for the people, by the people)

There is actually something called FDCI. Fashion Design Council of India. If you insist on knowing the expansion.

Its not terribly clear whether it is something set up by designers to "institutionalise" their profession, or whether it is something the government has set up , in a sort of semi interested way, (if such a thing is at all possible); but the person heading it right now, is a retired IAS (Indian Administratice Service) lady officer, with a huge amount of experience in handicrafts, tourism, and setting up of the National Institutes of Fashion Technology (NIFT) all over India.

For a couple of years now, newpapers get occasionally slavishly addicted to writing about the annual FDCI/Lakme fashion shows. There is always some fight going on between Mumbai and Delhi designers which is highlighted. Reams of paper are devoted to how some Page 3 types, are leaving everything they are doing, to fly urgently to the concerned metros, so they can sit in the first row (reserved, if you please), wearing, what my mother would have called "shameless" clothes, and an expression that would make people think they are listening to a debate on the nuclear CTBT. These same people, change into more strange outfits every so many hours; and why not? Even something as sensible as NDTV has a fawning correspondent reporting on the appearance of the various queen bees and king moths, and their clothes and drinks.

All this for what ?

There is this longish stage sort of jutting out into the audience. Every designer has his or her special music playing. The audience is seated at a strategically planned lower level, probably at the ankle level of the parading models. I dont know about the FDCI, but when I was in elementary school, this kind of thing during any Annual Day would have got the parents into an uprising and the principal would have been fired. Ok. Its only children. The audience is only parents. But sitting at that level, and by default looking up someones skirt, is simply not done.

This is, of course, a non-issue at the FDCI. We're globalising, and these faltu things dont bother us.

And so what do you say about a girl, walking across the stage at an angle of 120 degrees to the horizontal; several degrees of amazing freedom created by pencil thin stilletoes; Her dress actually resembles a giant bib, (see the picture above ) like my son used to wear, when he sat in the swing hung on the balcony door, to eat his porridge. Except he wore a t-shirt inside; its not clear whether she wears anything inside, or not.

Then there is this lady who walks on to the stage next, wearing what reminds me of my grand uncle's pajamas. Except she has combined them with what i would define as my grandmothers saree blouse with only one shoulder and NO back. What is totally miraculous is the pajamas are worn BELOW the hips. And there appears to be a diamond stuck on to the navel. No wonder the lady has to walk with so much simple harmonic motion of the hips just to allow the pajama to stay in place. If she stops, they may slide, and she may have, what is these super globalised days, we call a wardrobe malfunction; my mother would have said that someone deserved a tight slap.

Sometimes these models appear wearing what looks like a pure balloon inspired dress. You need , around you, an empty space of at least 3 feet on all sides . Some of these dresses have no shoulders. Some only have sleeves, but no shoulders. The thing to do is to come fashionably in covered with your teenage brothers school blazer . These days its called a "shrug". You come on to the stage, give disdainful looks to a section of the audience, twirl, there is a clash of cymbals, and you remove the shrug; look ma, no shoulders !

They dont even let the saree alone .

Without the FDCI/designers et al, India has had a variety of saree draping styles, traditionally enjoyed by the women , over several hundred years. There is the Kerala Half Saree, the typical Tamil Nadu nine yard draping, the Maharashtrian nine yard grace, the various ways a six yard saree is draped, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marwari and what have you. All these styles have evolved with the emancipation of women from that particular region. A way of draping when you maintain the housekeys (bengali), a way of draping in front of elders, a way of draping and tucking in when busy with some physical work, and a way of draping when feeling cold....

I remember from my childhood, two distinct ways the 9 yard saree was draped. One way was favoured by the more active ladies, who cycled to work, and were PT teachers in schools etc. The other method was patronised by those more homebound, with less strenuous lifestyles. There is a third style patented by the Koli women of Mumbai; a sensible, no nonsense style that allowed you to comfortably work in water and land, where you needed to rush here and there, picking fish from heaps, sortng, loading, travelling in a hurry to the market through crowded trains etc.

Todays designers have no concept of Utility of dress. Precious stones are stitched on to whole sarees , which are instrinsically made longer in length, and thinner in texture. The sarees are wound several times (more than normal) before the paloo is flung over the shoulder. ( I cant see myself running to catch a bus in this. And I would discourage anyone trying to do that with so many precious stones attached) . Poor me; I still dont believe it when the salesman says its 6 yards, and make him measure it. I shudder at the lenghth I will need to measure here.

The other trick is to make it look as if no blouse is worn. This is achiieved by having straps on blouses. And then casually allowing your open hair to fall over it. Sort of a cross of Meena Kumari and Princess Diana. Sometimes, the purpose of the palloo is done away with altogether. How else will anyone see the pearl beadwork on the non trivial section of the blouse ? Models march across the stage holding their palloos widely away from their torso.

(Take a deep breath. Count up to 10. Temper under control). 20 years ago, someone would have thought she is in the process of removing the saree. No nice girls did that on stage. Today nice is a bad word.

Can you see youself going to work in your uncle's pajamas, and grandmother's saree blouse? Will a balloon dress put you at a superior advantage getting into bus no 392 going to Ghatkopar ? Will a thigh level frock combined with skin colored tights be ideal wear in Central railway second class ladies bogey? How do you feel about squeezing your way to the front of the bus (trying to get off) during the 7 pm rush hour, wearing a stomach skin displaying top on low rise jeans ? And do you dare to complain if you get advertantly or inadvertantly pinched in the process?

Is that off-the-shoulder dress going to be dangerous healthwise, given that you are standing in the doorway of a ladies compartment, half out of the door, and not likely to get a place to enter in till your station comes? Do you think the strategically placed slit at the back of your knee length skirt is a great aid for climbing into buses when several people behind you urge you to hurry up in cast the bus starts moving ? And why crib about the staring, observant person (in the seat next to where you stand, wearing your smart short top, displaying your considerable midriff) as you hang on to the oscillating overhead starps , on you way to college?

Somehow, in the effort at promoting originality, the individuality has been lost.

The question is who is all this for, and who is going to wear these clothes. And is this what we teach at the National Institutes of Fashion Technology?