So the day has come that I actually NEED to purchase clothing for myself. I cannot honestly remember a time in the last 10 years I have needed a thing but the NEED to shop pervades me on a daily basis. Working from home I would often drift over to Saks or Nordstrom’s and peruse the Sale sections, read the Updates from Fashion Week or check out the ever pricey but oh so desirable http://www.net-a-porter.com/ where even Barbie wear’s Christian Louboutin shoes. Here in the office in India, anything that has a category of shopping, sports, evite, travel or FUN is blocked….we cannot even check yahoo email during the day. At home I am left with a SLOW government run internet that times out each time the flash player tries to load the images at Nordstrom.com …so I am clueless until my next visitor brings me a copy of InStyle Magazine.
Thankfully I am in India and regular fashion here consists of Salweer Kameez or the Punjab Suit for women, Kurtas (Tunics) and loose pants, a Saree and jeans for weekend wear. Additionally, there are so many places you can pick up one of these items – it’s fairly inexpensive to fit in. And I will say, seriously comfortable to pull on some Indian attire, it feels a little like dressy pajamas. My colleagues get excited to see me embrace the Indian woman look and even strangers have walked up to me to tell me I look “pretty” or “much better in their clothes than the American ones I brought”…please do not tell Tory Burch http://www.toryburch.com/ her famous tunics do not pass for real Indian clothes.
Back to the need, I am attending a formal graduation for the HR Academy at Accenture (where we have entry level people spend 2 years working and going through formal HR training). The venue is the ITC gardenia hotel www.itcwelcomgroup.in/Hotels/itcroyalgardenia and the attire is formal, a Saree. Now this is a tricky thing for a non-Indian woman to pull off because it’s 11 yards of fabric strategically wrapped around you- no pins, snaps or velco and you are supposed to be able to move freely without it falling off. I decided to go to a Saree store that is known for bling, I figured do it up. You actually try on Sarees fully clothed and they wrap you up in about 30 seconds. It’s quite amazing and most of the sales people were men. I tried on about 10 different styles and the two pictured are what I ended up with. The multi colored one is heavier cotton with small mirrored disks sewn in and was about $100 while the other is chiffon with black sequins and costs about $35. I am bit nervous about putting myself together on Saturday without help and even more nervous about trying to go to the restroom with that amount of volume on….Oy! No champagne for me.
Yet the final complication to this formal event is that I shipped all my shoes! I could only fit 10 pairs in my luggage and the rest went by sea. So the matte gold flats, gold lizard heels, silver sparkly gladiators, fushcia flip flops and many other combinations are in a carton in Colombo (which is Sri Lanka) waiting to clear customs into India. I am going to have to be boring and wear the black or nude practical pair I packed for the first few weeks. Lesson learned, always sneak one pair of bling shoes in your bag for India.
Thankfully I am in India and regular fashion here consists of Salweer Kameez or the Punjab Suit for women, Kurtas (Tunics) and loose pants, a Saree and jeans for weekend wear. Additionally, there are so many places you can pick up one of these items – it’s fairly inexpensive to fit in. And I will say, seriously comfortable to pull on some Indian attire, it feels a little like dressy pajamas. My colleagues get excited to see me embrace the Indian woman look and even strangers have walked up to me to tell me I look “pretty” or “much better in their clothes than the American ones I brought”…please do not tell Tory Burch http://www.toryburch.com/ her famous tunics do not pass for real Indian clothes.
Back to the need, I am attending a formal graduation for the HR Academy at Accenture (where we have entry level people spend 2 years working and going through formal HR training). The venue is the ITC gardenia hotel www.itcwelcomgroup.in/Hotels/itcroyalgardenia and the attire is formal, a Saree. Now this is a tricky thing for a non-Indian woman to pull off because it’s 11 yards of fabric strategically wrapped around you- no pins, snaps or velco and you are supposed to be able to move freely without it falling off. I decided to go to a Saree store that is known for bling, I figured do it up. You actually try on Sarees fully clothed and they wrap you up in about 30 seconds. It’s quite amazing and most of the sales people were men. I tried on about 10 different styles and the two pictured are what I ended up with. The multi colored one is heavier cotton with small mirrored disks sewn in and was about $100 while the other is chiffon with black sequins and costs about $35. I am bit nervous about putting myself together on Saturday without help and even more nervous about trying to go to the restroom with that amount of volume on….Oy! No champagne for me.
Yet the final complication to this formal event is that I shipped all my shoes! I could only fit 10 pairs in my luggage and the rest went by sea. So the matte gold flats, gold lizard heels, silver sparkly gladiators, fushcia flip flops and many other combinations are in a carton in Colombo (which is Sri Lanka) waiting to clear customs into India. I am going to have to be boring and wear the black or nude practical pair I packed for the first few weeks. Lesson learned, always sneak one pair of bling shoes in your bag for India.
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