The problem

PERSONAL style is an amalgam of many different, often contrary, attributes of personality, inheritance, culture, both internal and external influences and, most importantly, an eclectic patterning of individual taste using all these ingredients. When it all comes together with conscious deliberation to fit one or other ‘model’, it appears awkward and pretentious, something that is ‘put on’ and inorganic, a fancy dress caricature. Real style is when all these bits and pieces flow with ease and abandon, interlacing into becoming a statement that establishes the inherent, special and unusual personality of the particular individual. It is those who set a trend. And trends are ever mobile and changing. Fashion and its careful crafting makes those trends into tangibles that encapsulate them in their time warp. Style and fashion are embedded within the traditional parameters of the ‘civilization’ where they are born and differ from country to country. They embody the cultural ethos of their environment.

From how we dress to how we live, what we eat, which ‘things’ we spend hard-earned money on, how we define ‘leisure’, and more, are the many indicators of the social history of the time. Dreams and aspirations of the young are reflected in these changing mores. They tell stories that open small windows into what the future could look like. It is these manifestations that trace and delineate contemporary realities and social truths. Trends, fashion and fads represent the yearning of the next generation, their need to break loose from the constrictions they were brought up in and their desire to carve out their own niche. It is important, therefore, to appreciate this constant churning without prejudice and pomposity that is usually evident in the attitudes of a passing generation to ‘fashion’ as being something flip and airy-fairy!

Style, however, does not have to keep pace with changing fashion. It comes with feeling rooted in one’s space, confident in one’s skin, having experimented with the extremes. It is akin to mature wine. Having drawn from the past as well as the contemporary fashions, a style emerges that establishes a comfort level, a sense of self-assurance that becomes the strong foundation, the stepping stone, for the next round of wild innovation and experimentation. Assimilating from the past and the present, the creative juices keep flowing, adding to the vast and varied collectibles that tell the story of the world through the ages.

This issue of Seminar brings together a many-faceted story, the many links in the chain of changing mores and norms, influences, fads, different fashions – all interlinked but jostling for space in a rapidly urbanizing, internationalizing middle class society where differences and disparities are sharp and distinct, where social insecurities of a society in volatile transition are compelling a new generation to make choices in a mind-boggling, diverse marketplace, where individual style statements and those with mass appeal equally make their bid for a share of the lucrative pie.