Upping their saree game – a feat every Indian girl wants to nail-is pretty simple to achieve. Tie your saree as frequently as possible and not be sorry about it. 😛 (See what I did there) Buhaha!
I for one love my sarees and love to explore the different ways I can tie it and the different ways I get to stitch my blouse! Thats precisely why, when Sareez – The online store approached me to do a post featuring them, I was more than willing! Upping my saree game and strutting around and getting clicked in a fabulous saree? Count me in!! 😀 For this post I chose from the WIDE collection of sareez.com a half-and-half or whats called a partly saree, where the pallu or the part of the saree I drape over my shoulder is of one color and the pleats or the fan like shape the saree takes below the waist is of a totally different color, giving it two-piece feel!
I loved Sareez.com for more than just a few reasons. Their range is just ginormous (is that a word?) and their filters are amazing – price filters, occasion filters, saree color filters and even saree material filters! Woohoo! Their quality is a next plus – right from their packing (if you are sending it as a gift to someone, you should probably remove the first “few” layers of packaging.. lol.. its so well packed! :P) and the quality of their product. I have been very skeptical about buying sarees online, but what you see is truly what you get here. Also, for a small fee they even stitch your blouse and give you the skirt required for the saree. Yayy!
This is a designer synthetic saree with golden and broze embroidery and detailing. It has a beatiful three-fourths sleeve black blouse and its a perfect party wear kinda saree. I decided to go simple on the accessories and chose this beautiful pearl earrings (twas a gift! gift! gift! 😀 ) and chose my tommy hilfiger watch and my glitter clutch!
Also, (dont laugh at me now!) in an attempt to improve my blogging I shot a video for this saree!! Sharing the link here!
These beautiful video and the amazing photos were captured by Ranjini Ramesh. Thank you so much Ranjini! This post wouldnt have been half as beautiful or colorful if it wasnt for you. :* Follow her on Insta here Here and her youtube channel here! If you want such beautiful videos done, dont hesitate to ping her at ranjini.ramesh14@gmail.com!
Outfit Details : Saree – c/o sareez, earrings – gift (I think it was thrifted in Mumbai! Correct me if Iam wrong gifter :P), Watch – Tommy Hilfiger, Clutch – PolkaDot and You (Instagram)
Thatt would be it from me folks! Have a fabulous monday (er..ok) and an amazing week too! Oh and its my Birthday! WISH ME!
The change of climate is such a looked forward to event in the west…closets, schedules, timings and emotions all change with changes in the seasons. My country in general and my city in specific however (here we go!) has just one two climates – summer without rains and summer with rains. Yes. YES. So basically we are wet for 8 months of the year because of sweat and wet for the remaining 4 months of the year because of…wait for it…sweat + water (rains!) We have no anticipation or nervousness while pulling back our curtains every morning or while checking the daily weather forecast. We are the land of the risen sun. We do sunny. forever. period.
All that being said, we have some major advantages. We can use every piece of clothing through the year without thinking about things like transitions or changing wardrobes like three-four times a year. We get to plan for that road trip we have been meaning to take in December or May or August without giving a thought to any factor other than our mood (really!) We enjoy parks and flowers and lawns and hills and sands and beaches through the year. We do sunny forever and you’ll find us really happy about that!
As an ode to this Indian Summer, here’s a really summery and bright and vibrant outfit I put together. Its the perfect sunny-sunny and the sunny-but-rainy outfit you can probably lay hands on!!
This is a beautiful dress which is a mix of chanderi silk and a Kantha work fabric designed completely by the fabulous Just My Luck by A&M ! Had you told me lime yellow with lime green butta work on it would go so well with blue block prints I would have scoffed at you. But loook!!👇👇👇
While trying out the look I was trying out a couple of different accessories to sort of figure out which went best with the dress, but ended up loving each piece completely so decided to include every picture of the shoot in the post (except one where I looked positively hideous because I was sneezing and simultaneously asking my sister to stop clicking. Yes.)
This dress to me defines summer. An Indian Summer! It’s bright, its light and comfortable which makes it my go-to piece when its bright warm and sunny and its a one piece, well above the ankle, just wear it and you’re good to go sort of, elegant outfit just right for the sunny yet rainy sort of day where jeans is just not an option. Aaand needless to say, I felt fabulous in it. I was very particular about getting the brightness of the lime green against the morning sun and my sister, my photographer, so sweetly and readily agreed to get up for this photoshoot 😍😘
Just my luck is a boutique store dealing with every Indian fabric, designing them with a modern, retro kind of twist and yet giving them a very desi vibe. They deal with fabrics ranging from ikat (as seen in this post) to chanderi silk and outfits ranging from booty shorts to maxi dresses. I got to interact with Aruna, and she is the perfect example of “do what you love and you’ll outdo yourself every single day!”
Outfit details : Kantha Dress – Just my Luck by A&M (catch them on Facebook by clicking here or Instagram by clicking here!), mini gladiator sandals and nude pumps – Westside, Long bubbles chain – Westside , Necklace used as headgear – thrift shopped off the streets of Mumbai.
Hope you enjoyed this post readers. I sure enjoyed putting it up. I’m off to bask in the summery morning of Monday (too positive?) You enjoy your Monday too and if you are from a tropical country, I would sign off by telling you to keep calm, because winter is never coming. Haaa!
Its been a year! A year since I decided I wanted to blog! A year since I realized clothes, styling and writing are my true passions and decided to follow them. A year since I decided to give up apprehensions about how good or bad I might be at this and get down to business and find out. A year since I started discovering how beautiful, giving, welcoming and heartwarming the blogging community is. A year since I made so many strong soul-matey connections with various bloggers all over the world.
I know I haven’t come too far from the start line and I definitely can’t write award winning books like “how I made $40k my first year of blogging” (there is really one such book 😋) Hell I can’t even write about making $40 in my first year of blogging but what I can talk about are the friends, readers and memories I have made this one year and I can talk about what a well rounded personality blogging has made me. Its amazing what like minded people when brought together on a common platform like this can do.
This blog and the people that make it have become very close to my heart through the course of this year and I thank you all so much for showing me so much love! I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Aaanyways! Hi you guys! As a final part of this print preview series, I bring to you quirky prints as the theme. So what qualifies as a quirky print? Any pattern which is actually decipherable and isn’t meant to be on a dress – like a face! or pineapples! or tea cups! or hair dryers (what? It’s a possibility Ok?)
All dressed for an office party! The only kinda party I attend! 😂
Since any and every unual print qualifies as quirky I’m going to restrict myself to just a few. So what you see above is a really cool tribal print bubble top. I bought this one online off an Instagram account for 300 bucks can you believe that? 😍😊
When a lot is going on in one piece of your outfit it’s often a wise idea to restrict the chaos and have every other piece quite plain. That’s why I paired that top with a red blazer and blue jeans!
Outfit details : Tribal printed Top – sugarpopssp (Instagram account) | Red blazer – Only | Jeans – 109°F | Glitter platform heels – Westside | Glitter clutch – Polka dot and you (Instagram account) | Watch – Tommy Hilfiger
Other fun(ny) prints include the famous pineapple printed crop tops and shorts which has taken over the F21 and HM market! I love them but not enough to buy them yet! 😂
Here are some really different prints I came across on Pinterest!
Typewriters have never looked this good. Agreed?
A big moustache creeps me out only in real apparently!
Also, here’s my take on these fun prints!
This is the famous iron box printed kurti my sister owns. Since she’s too busy to pose for me (😕 uh-huh) I decided to put a look book of sorts with that piece. So I paired it up with my sister’s knee length denim shorts and a pashmina shawl (my proud possession. Lol) This print never fails to turn some heads and others find it to be an easy conversation starter when she wears it. Its quirky and pretty cheap and we had no reason to not love it 😊
Outfit Details : Iron box printed Kurti – Aakriti by Pantaloons | Knee length denim shorts – Bare Denim | Pashmina Shawl – Thrifted off the beautiful streets of Delhi.
That’s all for today’s post my beautiful readers. Do you have any such fun prints which make heads turn too? Tell me! I’m all ears 😀🙉
Also, watch this space for some amazing outfit posts and website recommendations in the days to come! Have an amaze-balls weekend! 💝 Ciao!
Hi you guys! I am back (about time!) with yet another post about Prints!! Back when I did my first post – I dint think this theme through and chose florals as an individual post and went ahead with it. But then the very obvious struck me! Taking prints as a theme just brings in almost an entire genre of fashion into its purview and here I am trying to talk about prints in like four to five posts. Which is impossible. Which is not doing justice to the theme. Which is why I decided on this elaborate plan of choosing groups of prints per post and what better way to start than closest to home. So presenting to you – (cue music 😂) my take on INDIAN PRINTS! 😀
The fashion scene in India is pretty competitive (Indians – ‘nuf said) and growing. While designers love experimenting with colors and cuts there is something common across the country’s fashion industry- Embroidery!! Embroidery is so South Asian and specific to us that I bet its not even a considered as an option for the designers of the West. While prints have been prevelant from before embroidery came into the picture, the sheer workmanship and creativity one can display (and hence charge a bomb for,) through embroidery makes it a luxury and preferred favourite of the runway. So while embroidered-wear can sit snootily in the throne I am today going to embrace its less glamourous cousin Indian Prints because hey prints are here to stay!! 😀 They have been around for ages, they are at times handmade, they fit our purse strings and they are fun to work with and sport. For this post I have chosen four basic prints every Indian girl knows or should know!
Kalamkari
While I have yapped enough and more about Kalamkari on this blog to you before, heres what you need to know of what Kalamkari is all about !!
“Kalamkari is a type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, produced in parts of India and in Iran. The word is derived from the Persian words ghalam (Pen) and kari (craftsmanship), meaning drawing with a pen (Ghalamkar). The “kalam” or pen is used for free hand drawing of the subject and filling in the colours, is entirely hand worked. Only natural dyes are used in Kalamkari and it involves seventeen painstaking steps.”
While in modern times, on the kalamkari dresses we wear, the parts about natural dyes and the “pain staking process” part might not be true, it is said that artisans still use their pens to touch up the lines and pictures created mechanically! So you say its handmade or nothing? Haha good for you bro, I am happy with a “fully machine made but thoda handmade bhi” tag too!
Chennaites looking for Kalamkari, the place you gotta be is Shilpi! (Nungambakkam or CP Ramasamy Road)
I have had a love affair with this Print and material right here on this blog several times before! See for yourself! 😀
Meanwhile, here’s how my favorite cousin styles kalamkari palazzo pants while vacationing in Thailand
Gosh! This chic knows to holiday in style!
Block Prints
Another traditional form of prints are block prints. This is another form of Kalamkari but its quicker and easier to make because they are block printed!
Anyone can try block printing because it works on a simple concept! You’ll know what I mean when you see this!!
Yes! We all, each one of us, could have become artisans had we had the vision mission and purpose when we were taught the highly messy, satisfying art of vegetable printing. Lel.
So blocks which basically look like this are available on etsy and amazon! Wet paint on them and plop them really hard on a fabric of your choice and you get your block print!
Block printing is widely used in India. It works really well on cotton and hence we Indians embrace it with two hands and two feet because a thing called winter is nonexistent here.
This Kurta – my all time favorite, is a really old block printed piece I have!
Also here’s how my school mate and friend Anusha loves her block prints
Anusha is giving western outfits and retail brands a run for their money by rocking New York in this block printed beautiful salwar kameez.
Nailing looks since 1990 can be a tagline for this cute fashionista friend of mine 💝😊 thanks Anusha for the contribution
Bhandhani
Bandhani is a type of tie and dye practiced mainly in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, India. The term bandhani is derived from the Sanskrit word banda (“to tie”). Bhandhini is tough process whereby a piece of cloth is tied up and covered in small loops at various places and then dyed. On drying these tied up portions are opened up and since they weren’t exposed to the dye they remain in the original shade.
Bhandhini is again a work of art special to Gujarat and Rajasthan (honestly how skilled and creative are these people?)
My friend Nandhini readily agreed to help me out with showing my readers how she styled her beautiful bhandhini saree. I love the way she has accessoried so perfectly for this saree!
How Nandhini? How do you manage to find the perfect accessories every single time 😍!
Bhandhini apart from being styled as sarees is really popular as dhupattas and skirts
Ikat
I must say I knew nothing about ikat until very recently. I call it the aztec of Asia. I saw this video about how ikat is done and it is such hard work!! Check out the video here :
Giving you the link because a) seeing it is so much better than reading about it and b) even describing the process seems like hard work for me 😐
I recently bought an AMAZING ikat short skirt and I’m surely posting about it soon. But for now lemme show you how some of the lovely girls I know styled and nailed this pattern!
Niveditha does Ikat in style with this boho type blouse. She has pulled it off with such grace and elan and she gets brownie points for such a fabulous backdrop 😍
My style crazy shopping crazy bestie preeti does Ikat in this party wear shirt and she sure has moved out of comfort zone and is rocking the look!!
While these are not all the prints that there are in India I have tried covering the main ones. Hope you enjoyed this long and long due post. Have a happy rest of the weekend peeps. Love y’all 😘
Are cringing and complaining the first reactions you have on waking up on a bright Sunday morning too? Is that like..normal? The thought that the weekend is 50% over just beats out the “the glass is half full” kinda optimism out of me. So to help you (and me for that matter) push those sad Monday blues out, I’m showing you how fun blue can get with this “all blue” outfit.
After months and months of searching tirelessly, I at last found the right pair of light blue jeans readers. And I honestly couldn’t have been happier.
I paired my perfect blue jeans with this midnight blue with white star printed shirt and with my blue Aldo loafers.
Sometimes I find that going high on various shades of a single color works after all when we tread with caution and don’t go over board. Do try the technique with soft shades like blue, peach, cream, green etc and SHOW ME!
In this case for example, a kind of balance was restored, or so I would like to think, by bringing in many aspects of white into the look. Any pastel shade would actually do the trick, black and white being the perfect colors that they are, would do the trick even better!
That brings us to that one accessory which I’ve never shown on this blog though it has been with me for ages now, my Rocky-S bag!
Woohoo dont you like love that bag ? What with the golden zippers and metal rings it gives the whole bag such a “I’m the boss” look.
Ever since I went public about this blog, I have had some amazing suggestions about how to make my blog work better and reach out to more people effectively. I’m so glad I have such a receptive creative and helpful bunch of friends. Shout out to one friend in particular who just killed it (nailed it more like) with his amazing ideas about how Frillthrills could grow into a household name. Jaydeep I’m totally capitalizing on the free advise you gave me and the ones I am going to get soon. Thank you. 💝 after all its not every day you meet your extra ordinarily smart friend who has a flair for ideas about literally everything under the sun. Remember that story about being able to sell refrigerators to Eskimos? That’s my friend for you. 😎
Outfit details :
Light blue jeans : 109° F (Lifestyle), Starry shirt : Fast fashion Besant Nagar (have you checked out that store already?) Bag : Rocky S (Shopper’s stop), Shoes : Aldo, Watch : Fossil
Have you guys gone high on one color like I did? What contrasting or complimenting color did you guys use to subtle down the look then? Tell me! Show me! 😀 have a great week. *grumble*
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