Remember Sonny from the Kenneth Cole ads? Our favorite sexy Sikh man is back, this time with a full spread out in GQ Spring/Summer ’09.

It’s great that the image of the sardar is receiving positive attention. Perhaps it will encourage those who aren’t familiar with Sikhs to learn more. I said perhaps. More realistically, the page will be turned (no, not all Sikh men dress…like that) and Sikhs will still be unknown. It’s in our human nature to see something unfamiliar, and then go back to our dinner and never think of it again. [LangarHall]

Why so skeptical, Sundari? I’m sure many a folks will be turning the pages on this entry virtually, repeatedly. More pictures after the jump… Continue reading →

I’m not the type to really follow New York Fashion Week (all bout L.A.!) but an article at Jezebel caught my eye.

There were 116 labels that held shows at the recently ended New York fashion week; that’s 3,697 spots in runway and presentation lineups. Of those, 668 were given to models of color — which, at just over 18%, is 6% better than one year ago. (And certainly better than in the fall of 2007, when WWD reported that one-third of the New York shows used no models of color at all.)[Jezebel]

The blog did further analysis breaking down the 668 models of color by race (41% Black models, 38% Asian models, 22% Latin models.) I know what you are thinking – where the Desi at? Using the nifty Desi Filter, I searched the names of the models of color in the top 25 shows in New York’s Fashion Week, just to see if the increased diversity included ‘our’ kind of diversity.

And the winner is, drum roll please…Lakshmi Menon is the only Desi model reppin’ on the runway at New York’s Fashion Week. Lakshmi appeared in the shows of Alexander Wang, Badgley Mishka, Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg, and Jason Wu. Looks like Padma needs to beware – there’s a new Lakshmi in town.

Who is Lakshmi? Born in Bangalore in 1981, she started modeling in 2006 and signed with Ford Agency. She is known for her “pout” and is seen as a “rising star.”

Tall and dark— in many ways, Lakshmi Menon is the typical ‘Indian’ beauty. But in many other ways, she’s as unconventional as they come. With a strong jaw line and endless legs, Menon is global fashion’s latest muse. She’s walked the ramp for biggies like Hermes, Jean Paul Gaultier, Issey Miyake, Stella McCartney, Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors.[Express India]

She has a short video diary from fashion week where you can catch her gorgeous accent. She also thinks you should visit Ladakh.

The good news: we had sexy, dark and lovely Lakshmi as our token brown skinned girl on New York Fashion Week’s runways. The bad news: Out of 3,697 spots, they couldn’t find another brown girl to step on to the runway? How is that possible? Desi girls are HOT. Have they seen the picture of Padma on a swing? Or Sunny getting out the vote? Or the desi cover girls on Indian Vogue, Indian Elle, or Indian Cosmopolitan? When in Delhi last month I spent hours in front of the magazine rack enamored by seeing beautiful brown women as cover girls. We have great potential desi supermodels, despite what ANTM may have us believe.

It’s great that the runways were more diverse this time around, but as far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t diverse enough. They can do better next time. As for now, I’ll take Lakshmi as our token, any day. Both Padma and Menon. Continue reading →

I was just watching the 2008 American Music Awards noting that asymmetrical and gold bead worked dresses were in (how gorgeous were Leona Lewis’ and Nicole Scherzinger’s dresses?) when Alicia Keys walked out onto the red carpet. Now, we’ve seen plenty of desi cultural appropriation attire on the red carpet over the years, (remember Madge’s desification?) but Alicia’s tikka and earrings just made me tilt my head to the side and go, “Huh…”

You’d think with five nominations, her stylist could have spent a little more time on the red carpet outfit… I can’t get over how cheap the combination of the ‘plastic’ earrings with the tikka looked. I kinda can see how the one shoulder dress slightly resembled the swoosh of the auchol over the left shoulder, but still. It’s a stretch.

[Full length fashion disaster after the jump.] Continue reading →

Our recently retired around the way desi girl made a come back this past week in New York. Not in music, but in fashion. Yes, the queen of sparkly spandex and fake purple flowers on derby hats debuted her new line at same time as New York’s Fashion Week.

As promised, M.I.A. has launched her limited-edition clothing line, and the “Okley Run” store is open for business on her Web site. While the prints are pretty much as outlandish as you expect, the prices for each individual piece are a bit insane—and not in the “clashing colors that actually look better and better the more you focus on their dissonance” way, or even the Crazy Eddie way*. [idolator]

A quick glance of the online store had me come to a screeching halt — directly on the image of a sweatshirt labeled, “Islamic Hoodie.” It could be that the fasting from Ramadan has me extra sensitive, but it seems that everywhere I look I see images of hijabs as the latest fashion icon. I saw it on a shirt at a festival last week, and now this. On the Okley Run site the image of the sweatshirt could not be enlarged but I did see the eyes of a woman in niqab with what seemed like an explosion over her head. Could that really be what she was trying to say? What could M.I.A. have meant by this logo?

This would take some investigative blogging. The image on her site was simply not clear enough to decipher. Luckily, I just happen to live in one of the two cities where Opening Ceremony, the only store carrying her line retail, is – Los Angeles. Continue reading →

First reported by High Heel Confidential (thanks Nirvana), the Google Ooogle Sari is here. It’s produced by designer Satya Paul (you can see his URL in the URL bar of the browser), as part of his “inspirational series 3 – pop art” (Thanks Bloog). This is the promotional copy attached:

Oogle
Georgette jacquard printed sari along with unstitched blouse piece attached.

Inspirational Series 3 – Pop Art
“Starting in the 50’s, Pop art is a reflection of popular culture in art. Pop art is neither praise nor condemnation but explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. It often uses media, advertising, packaging, celebrity and comic book art styles to bring art closer to real life.” [Link]

The sari sells for Rs. 11,995.00/ USD. 299.88 and has now been spotted in a mall in Gurgaon:

Spotted this in a fancy mall in Gurgaon, India (the tech hub south of Delhi). I don’t know the backstory, and I couldn’t find out because (proving that India is aspiring to Western standards in every way!) a guard started rushing over to bust me for taking pictures. [Link]

This latter part cracks me up — was the guard protecting the intellectual property involved here? Afraid that somebody would take the photo and use it to create a copy of the sari more cheaply?

While I’m generally a traditionalist, I see the potential in this sort of printed sari. Do you think it will catch on? Will there be more logo branded saris in the future? Or perhaps saris that use text as decoration – after all, search results (and sponsored links in particular) are kind of boring. One could do far better if you want to invite somebody over to (ahem) deconstruct your text.

Finally – how long until somebody wears this to Google’s own offices? (I’ve got a friend who works at one of the Delhi area offices as a programmer, I should ask him if he’s spotted it yet)

Continue reading →