Style Diaries

Take for example Bangalore-based sisters Ruhi and Faiza Sheikh. The twenty-somethings started blogging at Republic of Chic (www.republicofchic.blogspot.com) more as a hobby. "We thought it would be fun to see how our personal understanding of fashion evolved. Gradually, the blog developed into a space where we tried showing how designer pieces look off the runway, among other things. We don't have endless legs and sculpted bodies like models on the runway do. So when we wear something and post pictures on the blog, readers sort of get and idea of what a dress looks when it's not paraded on a model, and accessorized by professional stylists," says 23-year-old Ruhi. And from jewellery to bicylces, the sisters' interests are varied and the response to their blog was almost unexpected.

Smrithi Rao, a 24-year-old Bangalore-based software engineer who blogs at Vintage Obsession (www.fashiontrendsindia.com), says that the absence of an interesting Indian fashion blog like the several in the West prompted her to start her own. "My blog is mostly about affordable fashion. On weekends I go hunting for budget shops. At times I buy stuff and put up pictures on my blog, or I take pictures from the shop itself," says Rao. Like Swasta Ani Masta (swastanimasta.wordpress.com), a city-based blog started by Mumbai-based journalist Mitali Parekh, Rao's blog tries to dig out outfits that can be styled differently to come up with multiple looks. "I am trying to provide my readers with a shopping option soon on my blog. Where they can order stuff I put up and I will organise a system to courier the same to then," says 30-year-old Parekh.

While several bloggers cite the lack of serious interest in fashion blogs, one has to admit that they have come up with a credible alternative definition of fashion as opposed to the jaded Bollywood-Fashion Glossy nexus. "A blog like High Heel Confidential is invited to the fashion weeks along with the press. While fashion blogging might be at a nascent stage in India, it does have a promising future," says Parekh. Touche!

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