Fashion in India: Anupreet Sidhu

Anupreet Sidhu is a freelance stylist, fashion designer and fashion student in India. She has worked with fashion designer JJ Valaya who specializes in Indian wedding dresses. Last summer she took a fashion course at Central Saint Martins in London.

Courtesy of Anupreet Sidhu

Geography seems a bit tricky in India, and very patiently Anupreet explained it to me. She lives in Chandigarh, which is the capital for two states, Punjab and Haryana. She is three hours away by train from Delhi, India’s capital.

“Now I’ll show you some embroideries that I made myself”, she said as she took out individually framed pieces of fabric from a box. She showed me ten different types of embroidery that she had made, as well as a doll that had a traditional Indian dress that she had done for a project at school. She held a frame with a white fabric and said, “and then there is this one. That’s my favourite one and it’s from Punjab from the area I live.” It was a square, it had two thick green lines and two pink ones, and in it, there were two orange triangles. 

Embroidery is a big deal in India, I pointed out. “It is because that’s the main part and it’s not available anywhere in the world, or if it is, then it is really expensive,” she answered.

In India, as Anupreet told me, colours, embroideries, even skin colour, varies completely from place to place. “The North part itself has so many cultures that you cannot count them. The amount of cultures vary from city to city, from village to village,” she explained.

Therefore fashion schools are completely focused on Indian culture. “I’m a student in India so I get to learn more about the Indian stuff rather than the stuff outside.” This doesn’t mean though that she doesn’t learn about the Western costumes, but they must know how to make traditional Indian costumes and learn Indian costume history too. “That’s at every school because they want to keep it alive because it’s so beautiful.”

In Chandigarh they have around four fashion schools, some of them government-owned, and others private, but she claims that government-owned schools are the best choice because they are more established.

Anupreet told me she likes her school, but the lack of competition is sometimes a bit disappointing. On the other hand, the design process is very different to the one she learned in London. In India, with just one picture as inspiration, they are meant to develop a whole collection, and then all the attention goes to the embroideries and illustrations. “That’s not helping me as a designer. It is just helping me to be an Indian designer, not a international designer”, she observed.

Courtesy of Anupreet Sidhu

As far as traditional clothing goes, in her city a suit is the main dress, but Anupreet says that girls in the city don’t really wear them, only during religious or special occasions like weddings.

A big limitation for her is that people in India are not really ‘experimental’. “Half of the people don’t even know what fashion is…”, she told me as she kept pointing out how Indian people do love and respect fashion designers but they are just not willing to try them.

Students that come from the villages are not really used to seeing different clothing, other than the traditional costume, so at university she said that she can’t really wear halter tops or skirts. She has to cover up with shrugs otherwise students stare. “They just look at me like aghh, like that, I’m like, what!?”

Anupreet has a way to style her traditions up: on her Facebook page she offers styling advice, publishes pictures of her own styling, and she recently launched fashion advice for guys too. She has known since she was very young that she wanted to be a fashion designer and she told me she would like to go to London to study her Masters there.

By the end of our conversation, while she kept explaining more details of her culture and the terrific hot weather in India, she said that her city was called The City Beautiful because it’s surroundings make it fresher than other places in India. “That’s why I keep telling you, come and meet me”, she giggled.

Visit Anupreet’s page: https://www.facebook.com/anupreetsidhu?ref=ts

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Fashion in Honduras: Fabi Pina

Fabi Pina lives in La Ceiba, Honduras. She has a blog about her own personal style; in it you can find patterns and instructions for making garments. Fabi constantly posts new looks and it’s very surprising how she has managed to survive in a country that looks like hell for a fashion lover.

Courtesy of Third World Fashionista

I contacted her through her blog and it didn’t take long for her to answer. I wanted her to share with me what fashion was like in Honduras:

“In my country the fashion industry doesn’t exist, but fashion is everywhere. I get inspired by town women with their well-ironed dresses, the colours in the market stalls, and my mother’s stories about growing up in banana fields.”

Flip flops, Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch are what boys usually wear, and girls match their accessories from head to toe. Trends are dictated by mannequins in the shop displays. You can only get Vogue in the capital, although Fabi said that she recently found Vogue Latin America in her town. And there are only a few bloggers that have managed to make some ‘noise’. “We are a million years away from getting free clothes and getting paid for advertising, hahaha!”

In case you are wondering, there is Fashion Week Honduras, but Fabi says that as a relatively successful fashion designer you’ll end up designing prom or wedding dresses.

The Internet is what has got her out of this situation. “There I’ve learnt how to pronounce names of recognized designers and even how to put a waistband to a skirt.”

Her dad pulled her out of school at 16 so her life wouldn’t depend on a title, and since then she learned how to sew and pattern-make in courses at government institutions were she confessed to learn very little. “I started a love-hate relationship with a sewing machine my grandma gave me, I bought books and I keep learning.”

Fabi certainly stands out as she makes most of her clothing and despite her being named ‘Lady Gaga’ she still wears high heels and short skirts. “Resources here are limited but that has forced me to be more creative and I love it, even though in the process I scare some compatriots,” she confessed.

There are like five textile shops in La Ceiba and they all sell practically the same things. So in order to make her clothes, she uses fabric for curtains or tablecloths, she takes apart old garments or buys remnants. “I foresee the day that I’ll get to a house and the furniture’s fabric and my skirt’s will be the same.”

Despite everything, Fabi admires her country so much and defines Honduras as “unique”, because she finds inspiration in the most daily things. “I love to see that where there is total ignorance for fashion, it is ironically where more fashion is! It is here where you have more creativity and freedom to express yourself without the preconception of what it’s supposed to be,” she affirmed.

Fashion caught her eye and she is not sure why. It was at 16 when she found a blog of girls in other countries that collected vintage clothing and they discussed that fashion could be a career. “That’s how it all started and even though I don’t regret it, being passionate for fashion in this country can make you often feel lonely. That’s why I’ve got the blog and you’ll see me around for a looooong time.”

Courtesy of  Third World Fashionista

Fabi’s blog: http://www.thirdworldfashionista.com/

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Fashion Around the World - A Brief Intro

Maybe you’ve wondered how it is for fashion students around the world? Can you study fashion in Peru? What is it like in Finland or India? Maybe you never have, and I honestly never thought about either until recently.

It was late in the afternoon and my first time in London, I left the student’s hall to walk around the city. At the same time two people left behind me. They were speaking Spanish, so I turned around to ask the typical question: where are you from?

Both looked very ‘fashionista’; he was in a suit, looking very formal, she was wearing a short skirt, 5” heels and had really long black hair.

They were Honduran and they were taking fashion courses at Central Saint Martins. They were on their way to Topshop at Oxford Circus. He said he was a stylist and she was a blogger, I confessed to just being a fashion student.

She was really quiet, while he was quite chatty. “In Honduras you can’t study fashion, you have to work,” he mentioned. We walked together to the tube and then went our separate ways. After that, I never saw them again.

A month had gone by and I was back home, but I kept on thinking about what he had said, so, I Googled ‘Fashion blog Honduras’. The first blog that came out on the searcher’s list was hers, ‘Third World Fashionista‘. I read the blog title; I laughed, I read her profile: “I was born and raised in a place where fashion is only about matching.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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