:::The Desi Flavor:::

Firefly - A Fairy Tale by Ritu Beri

 

Celebrated fashion designer Ritu Beri recently completed writing her first book titled Firefly: A Fairytale. The book deals with topics like architecture, history, women and their beauty. It also talks about her experiences in Paris which were important in shaping her career. The book’s price tag is Rs. 100K will be sold in Paris at the new Louis Vuitton flagship store and through Beri's own store. That's some price tag!!!
Related - French applause at Ritu Beri's fashion show

Selling beauty queens and fairness queens

Jay Gohil

Priya Lal has yet another well-written piece about Beauty Queens and Fairness creams:

Their huge, glowing faces smile down from billboards on the mere mortal residents of big cities like Mumbai and Delhi; each tooth in their wide grins gleams with perfect whiteness, each strand of their shiny hair lies smoothed flawlessly into place. Their likenesses plaster the covers of women's magazines and the scores of advertisement pages within. Turn on the television, and you'll be sure to encounter at least one of them expounding on the virtues of the latest shampoo or beauty product. Even a glance at the front page of some of India's biggest newspapers on any given day will yield another glimpse of their tall, toned figures or their playfully pouting faces gracing wide expanses of space below some bolded headline announcing their latest accomplishment. They star in the biggest Bollywood flicks, they shake hands with the most famous public officials, and their names are foreign only to those citizens of the most remote villages or solipsistic existences.

Welcome to 2004 in India, where these women have become some of the country's most celebrated public figures and symbols of national pride

Herbal Saris

Jay Gohil

Saris, the bedrock of Indian women's attire, will soon come with medicinal value as traditional crafters inject refreshing herbs into the fabric. The handloom trade in Thumbod village in the southern state of Kerala is reviving the ancient art of weaving herbs, leaves, fruits and roots into sari fabric instead of chemical dyes. The technique, once used to dress royalty, comes from ayurveda, India's traditional herbal medicine. Ayurvedic herbs, which crafters say will stay in each sari for life, are reputed to fight bacteria to check disease and promote health.

link

i style magazine

Jay Gohil

i style magazine is the premier fashion magazine for women. They primarly focus on the South Asian women in North America, covering both the Eastern and Western style of dressing and identity. They could do some work on their web site though. It's overly stylish but lacking in content.

Miss India UK

Jay Gohil

Any of you girlies have a British passport? Then feel free to apply for Miss India UK contest. You need to be at least 5ft 3inches, never married/childless and virgin and be between 17 & 27 years of age.

Click here for pics of last year's finalists. Who's your favourite?