Trends that ain’t your friends

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Some times I am forced to ask myself painful questions. Like: Ok, we love fashion. But, does fashion love us?

This is not an excuse to recycle body positivity cred and virtue-signal about Size Zero. I'm not here to throw shade at Sara Ali Khan claiming to be a regular cool gal who shops at Sarojini Nagar; but to speak of more insidious things, yaniki, aesthetic conspiracies.

Many feminist characters of my generation started out abjuring fashion because it seemed to come bundled with gender stereotypes. Over the years we worked out our relationship with clothes, beauty, self-expression, autonomy and pleasure. As we grew older, we even developed a jaunty relationship with trends. But just as we settle down, a trend comes along that I start to feel is gaslighting the public.

Not long ago there was: The Cold Shoulder. I accept I am an award-winning khadoos, but let me inform you ki I am not alone in wondering about the intentions of the cold shoulder. Google it, and one of the top searches will be: "what is the point of cold shoulder tops?" Cold shoulder tops have doubtful artistic merit and on top of everything else suffer from the bra strap problem. A website suggested various ways to deal with the peek-a-boo strap competing with peek-a-boo shoulder, all requiring a degree in mechanical engineering. Example: Pinch your bra straps together with one hand and connect them with 2 bobby pins in an "X" formation to hide them behind. Slide your bra straps off your shoulder and hide them under with boob tape. One is forced to ask: Is this relationship worth it? If we must go to so much trouble to flash some shoulder toh noodle straps or spag-hetti kya mar chuke hain? Cold shoulder is an internship pretending to be work experience.

Cold shoulders had a long run. I think it took a pandemic to really finish them off. In the pandemic I missed clothes - my own and other peoples. Boy was I happy to return to admiring outfits at conferences, and wearing saris for no reason. But just as happiness became habitual - enter, co-ords.

There are many troubling things about the co-ord set besides the fact that it cascades down your Instagram feed confusing you into buying one (don't say anything). Sure, co-ords suit a chosen few. Slender, very young men, but only in the shorts, not long pants, version; as tailored suits of shantung silk and exotic prints on denizens of the red carpet. For the rest, it's a fake democracy. Co-ords are the f - kbois of fashion trying to fool you that they are print-on-print elan.

Why shouldn't co-ords be cancelled? First of all, there is no actual coordination involved in just cutting two garments from the same cloth. After decades of mocking the Punjabi suit - salwar kameez of the same print - as behenji type, now you appropriate it, make one change and call it fashion? What are you, a content creator? Last and not the least, just because people now call pyjamas loungewear, does not mean co-ords are not night suits. Co-ords are three years of college calling themselves an academic career (no clue why you think I have CV-trauma).

Sometimes I am forced to ask myself painful questions. Like: Ok, we love fashion. But, does fashion love us?
This is not an excuse to recycle body positivity cred and virtue-signal about Size Zero. I'm not here to throw shade at Sara Ali Khan claiming to be a regular cool gal who shops at Sarojini Nagar; but to speak of more insidious things, yaniki, aesthetic conspiracies.

Many feminist characters of my generation started out abjuring fashion because it seemed to come bundled with gender stereotypes. Over the years we worked out our relationship with clothes, beauty, self-expression, autonomy and pleasure. As we grew older, we even developed a jaunty relationship with trends. But just as we settle down, a trend comes along that I start to feel is gaslighting the public. Not long ago there was: The Cold Shoulder. I accept I am an award-winning khadoos, but let me inform you ki I am not alone in wondering about the intentions of the cold shoulder. Google it, and one of the top searches will be: "what is the point of cold shoulder tops?" Cold shoulder tops have doubtful artistic merit and on top of everything else suffer from the bra strap problem. A website suggested various ways to deal with the peek-a-boo strap competing with peek-a-boo shoulder, all requiring a degree in mechanical engineering. Example: Pinch your bra straps together with one hand and connect them with 2 bobby pins in an "X" formation to hide them behind. Slide your bra straps off your shoulder and hide them under with boob tape. One is forced to ask: Is this relationship worth it? If we must go to so much trouble to flash some shoulder toh noodle straps or spag-hetti kya mar chuke hain? Cold shoulder is an internship pretending to be work experience.

Cold shoulders had a long run. I think it took a pandemic to really finish them off. In the pandemic I missed clothes - my own and other peoples. Boy was I happy to return to admiring outfits at conferences, and wearing saris for no reason. But just as happiness became habitual - enter, co-ords.

There are many troubling things about the co-ord set besides the fact that it cascades down your Instagram feed confusing you into buying one (don't say anything). Sure, co-ords suit a chosen few. Slender, very young men, but only in the shorts, not long pants, version; as tailored suits of shantung silk and exotic prints on denizens of the red carpet. For the rest, it's a fake democracy. Co-ords are the f - kbois of fashion trying to fool you that they are print-on-print elan.

Why shouldn't co-ords be cancelled? First of all, there is no actual coordination involved in just cutting two garments from the same cloth. After decades of mocking the Punjabi suit - salwar kameez of the same print - as behenji type, now you appropriate it, make one change and call it fashion? What are you, a content creator? Last and not the least, just because people now call pyjamas loungewear, does not mean co-ords are not night suits. Co-ords are three years of college calling themselves an academic career (no clue why you think I have CV-trauma).

Friends, the bitter truth is, some trends are not our friends, they are not even friend-zone. Let us move gracefully on, in our (other) Sunday best.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com