The F-phenomenon

Those who know me will also know that I am definitely the most unqualified person to talk about this. However, because I am continuously bombarded by inputs on this F-thing all the time courtesy media (Mumbai Mirror to be more specific), cousins, family, friends (Not the BBC ones!) and acquaintances, the least I can do is to probably air my views or rather the lack of them on this topic.
Fashion is eponymous and synonymous with Mumbai. So much so that everyone, right from my maid to the sixties women in my building, keep themselves abreast and draped in the latest trends. And mind you, doing that is not really easy as one day you go to sleep affirming that grey is the dullest shade ever while the next day you wake up to find that ‘Grey is the latest black’. The coterie of fashion designers and the innumerable fashion weeks keeps the confusion alive. It is always fun to read the latest in colours, in cuts, in silhouettes and the stilettos and what-nots that the media keeps feeding to ignoramuses like me! And the terms are really creative too; cigarette pants, belly-busters, tanks, empire cuts and a whole jamboree of stuff like that.

Earlier I used to think that following fashion trends was for the classes and not for the masses. Sadly, it took my sprightly 10-year old cousin of mine to show me the way or rather let me flounder. For an entire year and a half, every time I would see her, she would be dressed in flaring wide skirts, awash with colour and bold prints. Every time I would refer to them as skirts, I would be patiently corrected, “These are not skirts, didi, and they are called gypsies”. Those skirts were so bright and seemed so conducive to hide my bulging adiposities in all the wrong places of my body that I gave way to temptation and brought two of them intending to wear them some day.

However, the next time I saw her after a long hiatus, gone were the skirts and she was dressed in what seemed to be coffee-colour slacks to my naïve eyes and brown tunic with frills and puffy sleeves and everything else that makes a woman feel good about her extra x-chromosome.
So as soon as she entered, I was like,
“Hey, N, what happened to your, er…um..haan...Gypsies”, glad that I had finally got the term right. “And why are you dressed in this frock with slacks below!”
“Oh, didi”, came her weary reply, “Gypsies have gone out of fashion a long time ago. These are called leggings and not slacks and this is not a frock, it is an empire-dress!
So what had she done with her entire wardrobe? And what was I to do with mine now?’ Did you give them to the gypsies? I lamely joked.
“No, didi, to an orphanage near my home. Give me yours too. I will give it to them!”

This was really an innovative solution. Not only do you get to follow all the latest trends in fashion and but you would also be helping someone out. But sadly, for an old ‘miser’able hoarder like me who still wears her 5- year old salwar-kurtas to college, this is a totally antagonistic. So here am I, still dressed in the kurtas and kurtis (another story) stitched by my local darzee and trapezing through life like a true behenji! Cheers!