At the Fiera! Mumbai!

Mumbai/Bombay is home to the crowds, trains, smells, horns, the Bollywood demi-gods and to the almost extinct Parsi community.

Much of its beauty lies in its colonial architecture -- goth in style, which is part of the older quarters of the city. To me the post-'Raj' architecture and city planning is a disaster, in bad taste and shabby ... in the pits. Soaring skyscrapers that pose like design peaks are quickly replacing old mills and houses that once formed part of the city & its character. Mumbai still fights for survival, to save its art and culture.

The older quarter of the city plays host to an art and culture festival with much opposition from government bodies; the Kalaghoda arts festival finally managed to take off this year as well and I happened to be in the city.

There were surging crowds and way too many shutterbugs; to my surprise quite a weak sense of identity and style was evident; however there were a few interesting sights that traveled a long way here and I'd like to share these with you.

The Village folk were doing  great with their array of color  and comfortable culture clothing.

Color Pop! Funky cell phone cover to add to the dainty lady.

 

Ethno-chic silhouette!

  

They have the style, color and the expression & the depth!

The innocence is heart-rending at the fun-filled puppet show!

  

Color Blast!! Cheerful delight!

Ethno-Kitsch.. ancora!

Re-collecting Milano!

“Synthesized Synergism”

Cool hunting in Milan is indeed interesting and putting together a series of these images and analyzing and discovering new trends that are existent and emerging has been fun and work!

Since I've been working on this for a while now and After two seasons of cool hunting the principal trend that emerged is called “synthesized synergism” this would lay more emphasis,or in a way be better than just calling it the contamination of styles. Contamination would solely be like dirtying the purity of a culture, it would have a negative connotation or impact as a term for styles. But the synergy of these styles whether it is other cultures affecting Milanese styles or where it is to do with 2 or more opposite elements, materials etc that eventually give rise to a new style. These trends spotted have been given appellations. The principal trend has three main categories  of styles which are:

1 Wandering Jewels- this trend is to do with accessory and jewellery trends

2 Color Codes- clearly the name of the trend suggests what this trend is about.

3 Back to the Future- this category of trends is with reference to general styles and details that are inspired by fashions of the past.

These trends have further analysis and sub-trends under these categories:

Sub-trend one:Wandering Jewels

       Sweet Sensuality

An innocent sensuality is the core of this trend.

The ironic play with sensuality and childish playful elements, for .eg., an accessory which is a pair of hand cuffs combined with a candy colored child like accessory.

Kidadult: the sociological term applied to adults who want to style themselves like kids, but this trend has a twist to it, that of having a sensual element too to the kidadultness.

Androgynous Liberty

There are no more strict LOCs between the opposite sexes, no rules in fashion, what is feminine or masculine, genders have  lost their place in fashion. Absolute freedom in choice of fashion elements, there are no norms to adhere to gender.

 Ethno Kitsch

The Ethno Kitsch is a group that uses cultural references from crafts and styles but gives it a modern interpretation.

The Rasta influence also coming from eastern and South American cultures, the dread locks and natural-fibered clothing.

 

   Sub-trend Two : Color Codes

   Synthetic Synergy

Synergy: The interaction or co-operation of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

Materials: synthetic plastic and rubber- like materials and colors.

Synthetic synergy because the forms are organic but the color application to these forms is very synthetic, and the synergized effect of this combination of form and color is an emergence of the trend “synthetic synergy”

Bright color accents and solid colors of accessories and also hair color.

   Visual Sound

  Every color has as much an effect on people as music; color harmonies express themselves with the use of lines and making color compartments  with patterns to form a harmony.

Sola Kroma

  The use of monochromatic tones from ensembles, accessories to hair color. Color tones are maintained giving a monochromatic color effect.

to be continued...