Women hit back at India's rape culture

Being in India in that crucial period while the 23-year-old medical student was gang raped and struggling for her life in hospital was an experience that will stay with me forever. The general righteousness and fairness that i expect to meet in life is a prerogative. My sense of security in life stems from the fact that I was born and have grown up in a Western society where the law is reality. So many women live in a society where even if they do have the right of sexual consent or reproductive rights, the society or police will not act upon allegations with due respect to the woman.



This is the story as I've gathered it from BBC and general articles around: The case of the student in the Delhi-rape was that she and her friend were walking around looking for an auto (tuk-tuk) outside the biggest mall Select City-Walk. Seeing as they were going far none of the drivers were willing to take them. This type of night time haggling is a pastime that you will end up spending a lot of time on if you decide to live in Delhi. Then they jump onto a bus - the decision that turned out to be the worst thing they could do. The driver had simply invited his friends for a ride after hours. It was a mistake of the couple to jump on that bus, and it was awful what those psychos did to her. But the awful thing doesn't end when they are kicked out of the bus. The scary part was for me to realise that naked, beaten up and blood streaming down their bodies they were running around the streets looking for help and not finding any. Auto's, taxis, trucks, people in their shiny white cars all refused to help them get to a hospital.

Getting involved in a case like this would take up your time and money - you could end up being suspect if you don't pay enough bribes with the way the Indian justice system malfunctions. When finally they manage to get hold of the police, the poor incompetent officers had to decide which hospital to bring the couple to. Because of the bureaucracy involved they couldn't bring her to the nearest (private) hospital, but had to take them to a propped government hospital with a queue that didn't exactly help getting her to a doctor any faster. The story shows that not only are there too many rapes happening in Delhi, but there is a profound fault with the justice system and bureaucracy involved even in emergencies.

The amazing thing that happened after the sad death of the victim December 29th was that women of all backgrounds started caring. They joined forces and told the men that they would no longer accept the treatment as sex objects any longer. I experienced how men would stare, lick their lips in lust and grope my privates as I passed by. I learned to lower my eyes and by New Years Eve I was prepared for the party scene in Goa where we accidentally ended up in a not-so-touristy club with way too many men. Twice in the first 15 minutes on the dancefloor i managed to grab the arm touching my ass and hit the guys. I seemingly got respect from that and as far as I remember the strangers left me to dance the night away with my friends.

The Red Brigade is a group of women in Lucknow who has gathered to end sexual harassment and abuse by learning self-defence and exercise punishment of the local men. Now, I'm not in favour of taking the law into your own hands as the Red Brigade do when they beat up men. But upon the realisation that the police really is corrupt, that the legal system does not function and this is the only realistic option for these women I have come to the conclusion that it has to be the way of India's women. Women in India need to prove their strength and unison. Until the legal and bureaucratic system gets fixed, physical come-backs and threats will have to educate the men of India on women's worth.

Speaking of rights and in the terms of third wave feminism will not help in India. India will go through their own waves of feminism, and all feminists in the west can do is to look at this in awe and write long blogs about it. We can show our support and facilitate learning, but it's their own fight with a part of their own culture that we can only try to understand. The women need to learn their rights and the men who don't get it need to be retaliated upon. It's a fantastic new era for these women and their daughters.

Dastkar Nature Bazaar

I've been too much away and too busy travelling this past month. Diwali in the desert was amazing and now that I'm packing and getting ready to leave Delhi I thought I'd just share a few pictures from the previous Nature Bazaar held by Dastkar.

Market stalls - you can see Malkha from where I got fabrics from at a previous market. I can't wait to receive the final piece from my tailor tomorrow.

Amazing camel leather bags with Gujarati emboridery.

  

The fair provides the biggest choice of fair trade, naturally dyed, hand spun scarves and bags that I've ever seen.

This is a detail shot of a sari that I simply had to return for when Diwali parties came closer. The peacocks are painted by hand in a technique called kalamkari.

At a friend's Diwali party with SartorialDiary

If you want to visit the Dastkar market in Delhi there is supposedly a chance again this December. Keep yourself posted on their facebook-page where people will start asking for the dates long before they are published. The location is walkable from Chhatarpur station and the food is great too.


UPDATE: the winter bazaar in the theme of Winter Weaves will be running from 20th to 25th December.

Style from Delhi Fashion Week

 Finally managed to do a little edit of the street style photos I took at Fashion week.
 

Just thought I'd put together these two strangers. The front-row woman had such a calm energy emanating from her, the Japanese buyer so restless.

Kiran, founder and designer of Myoho Studio.

Prateeq wears bracelets and a naturally dyed scarf that he made with techniques he learnt from village-people in rural India.

Day Four at Delhi Fashion Week

It's not exactly my day four, but that's what my entry card said. With the last day coming up tomorrow it was time for the up-and-coming designers to show what they had in store. First I went to a combined show of three young designers.

Kallol Datta 1955 is run by a graduate from CSM and it shows. The strong lines, the quirky print on structured garments all kept in the monotone made me temporarily wish all colours away. However, tonight I decided to colour it in a little anyway. So here are my runway pictures and doodles:

 

Please take an extra moment admiring those shoes before we go on to Anand Bushan and Rimzim Dadu. I have to say straight out that during the shows of those designers I lost track a little. There were too many looks and sub-collections. Also, my camera went a little fussy (nope, I'm not yet the photographer I was hoping to have become after thousands of pics in Jaipur).

Anand Bushan had a lot of mystically sparkling triangle pieces all worked around a fresh blue.

My camera really went crazy during Rimzim Dadu's show. I wish I had captured the final looks of lushy green sequins. I will update this space when find better coverage. Although the collection as a whole had some looks that needed discarding, there was really a lot of good pieces.

Gaurav Gupta SS13 - Delhi Fashion Week Day 3

Monday I managed to catch some catwalk action since apparently a student ID from a renowned fashion college gives you access to the show venues. Somehow my friend knew someone, who knew someone, who had extra passes for Gaurav Gupta.

 All photos in this post @SartorialDiary

The show was divided in two parts. The one I didn't like screamed early noughties, and took its inspiration from Christina Aguilera's white baggy pants. The styles above are all from the other half of the show. The shoes are gorgeous, reminding me of an old Miista style that I loved to bits, but in fresh neon colours and an interesting blocky heel. The fabrics looked so soft, the collars so fierce yet elegant and the colour combinations - absolutely incredible. (Just see the yellow shoes with the blue and white dress above).

There is little coverage from Will's Lifestyle India Fashion Week, but I did find Strut120 who create a slideshow of all the best looks.

'Rocks That I've Got' Project Update

Today I finally managed to pay a visit to my landlord's factory. Before I left London I promised my friend Rafal Zajko that I would source costumes for a performance of his. The project involves digital printing which is a big part of my landlord's business, so it seemed a perfect match. As always in India though, things take time.

The above is one of the designs to be printed on fabric and then stitched into shirts and trousers. I was initially hoping to source organic cotton, but now it turns out that the non-organic cotton I'd bought was wrong anyway. The printing process needed for 100% cotton would include all sorts of chemical pre-printing and post-printing treatments, so it was decided that the sourcing department of the factory would manage to find the poly mixed fabric. The printing method we decided on is ink deposition, meaning that the ink goes into the fibres of the yarn, as opposed to film deposition which is that plastic piece melted onto cheap t-shirts.

The printing manager did some tests on fleece material. First the design is printed onto a piece of paper with a special coating.

Then the paper is placed onto the fabric and the massive iron is pressed onto the fabric with a lot of pressure. The iron below is actually the smallest one in that room. Behind us, underneath a massive bunch of chiffon tops, there was an iron the width of fabric rolls.

When you remove the paper this is how it turns out. All the ink on the paper is gone, but the fabric is vivid.

Please cross your fingers that tomorrow I will have metres and metres of fabric to bring to a tailor. Meanwhile check out some of Raf's work.

Fashion Night Out India

Vogue's Fashion Night Out has truly become a global phenomenon. This Friday the luxury mall Emporio was host to the Indian version, complete with free champagne, wines and cramped full of photographers. Here are my pictures from the night:

Vikram and me - I'm flashing my one-black-button-shirt. I had lost a button, but I managed to only bring a black button with me here. Does it count as upcycled? Otherwise I'm wearing a few vintage accessories and American Apparel skirt.

Beautiful necklace in Ogaan, an Indian designer store.

Can you believe Fendi actually puts a bag like this in their window? Just the fact that they were selling it at all makes me wonder which year they think we are in.

Here comes my most favourite part. The Yayoi Kusama and Louis Vuitton collaboration made for the best red carpet. The wigs were such a great touch, and of course the sleek dark brown envelope which they gave us the pictures in added some style to the entire thing.

I really don't understand how Dhruv and I managed to coordinate accessories so well.

How dare Marilyn Monroe photobomb us

Had a blast in the autorickshaw home. We managed to squeeze all five of us in there. The police actually stopped us, but because we "foreign tourists" shouldn't have to go back home alone they let us stay together.

In memory of a photographer

Prabuddha Dasgupta was a renowned Indian photographer of both art and fashion. I was lucky enough to be invited along to his memorial service yesterday at the National Gallery of Modern Art by Vikram. At first it was the National Gallery building itself that impressed me. It is such a well-kept historic building and the couryard had been decorated with romantic jasmine flowers for the occasion. The result being that the sweet aroma spread across where we were sitting while friends and colleagues held speeches in memory of Prabuddha.

Prabuddha Dasgupta's work is a fantastic mix of the love for his gorgeous girlfriend Lakshmi and the raw imagery of Nepalese mountains and a sense for beauty beyond the fashion studio and photoshopped unreality.

Images above are from his personal series Longing and Ladakh and a commissioned spread for Ritu Kumar. For some reason I prefer his work for small and unknown magazines over his work for Vogue and Hermés.

Bad India Days

When I first arrived I was lucky enough that somehow the backpacking plans of a friend of mine from Denmark coincided with my arrival. She'd been travelling around for three weeks with her friends. She warned me that some days I would hate India, she said that in their little group they'd made it a joke to just say out loud "Bad India Day" whenever something was getting on their nerves.

Please allow me to share a few of my Bad India Day incidents. I really need to let go of it all...

So a few weeks ago my professor in manufacturing invites me to come along to a conference on Supply Chain Management because the CEO of a very interesting brand called Fabindia is going to speak. Fabindia is a fantastic initiative (I think) to build up a brand around traditional craftsmen. Of course it is criticised for not being fairtrade enough and it was a big thing when they stopped exclusively selling fabrics made on the handloom and began to offer powerloom materials. However, I decided to bunk college for two days for this conference, I bought a book written by the CEO and got myself ready.

So I arrive in this 5-star hotel through the rain, my auto-rickshaw wallah doesn't dare driving through the gates and I end up walking through the massive puddle by the gates. I get to the boardroom, register and get my programme. Mr. William Bissell is obviously nowhere to be seen on this. When later in the day I ask my professor he just does that funny Indian head-shake. Then I ask the person who arranged the thing and he explains angrily to me that it is not his job to make sure people come - it is only his job to invite them. So, the programme which was circulated before the conference started was listing all the people invited, not the confirmed speakers.

Oh well. Now I have a nice little badge to add to my travel diary and afterwards my professor introduced me to the most amazing market ever where I got myself a handloom weaved bed cover, a hand blockprinted sheet and a handpainted silk scarf. I promise you it was worth it.

Another weird thing about India is the lack of addresses. I was desperate to get my laundry done, so I asked  a friend about what to do. He drew a little map of our area and told me to get to Sinatan Dharun Temple. I could easily find a laundry wallah around there. Easily.

So I left my house and just to make sure I asked a guy on the road which way was to the Sinatan Dharun Temple. He gives me a puzzled look and explains to me that there are two temples by that name and they are both very close. So he asks if I am looking for the one in F-block or G-block. I have no idea because the people from class had all said that there are no addresses for these places. So I just decided on the F-block temple. I reach it and when someone from the temple understands that I'm not looking to buy flower necklaces, he takes me to a laundry place on the street. It's a group of people who built a little place outside, I talked to a woman who was ironing with the most ancient iron that I have ever seen. More ancient than the entire collection at Horsens town museum, I tell you. It was basically a container of red-hot burning coals. It is a sight that gave me several nightmares of her incidentally touching a corner of the synthetic lace on one of my shirts. We agreed a very cheap price (no bargaining needed there), and delivery at 8am. I was super happy that they had easily understood my address and I got someone's phone number and all.

This morning at 8.20am I decided it was time to get my clean laundry already and shower with the fresh clean towel and put on some fresh clean clothes. So I call up the dude and he tells me delivery will be 10am. No excuses, just that delivery will be at 10am. All day while in college the nightmare continues that I will be absolutely clothes-less because she touched that monster-iron onto my shirt and is too afraid to deliver back broken clothes. Thankfully though, at 2.30pm when I call to check a third time all the clothes had been delivered. The price had been adjusted of course, but it wasn't bad at all, and my clothes is kind of clean and kind of ironed.

Just one more incident and I think I'm fed up with writing. Several times I have wanted to take books out of the library. At first I still needed to get my id-card, then the desk had closed down without any notice and no opening hours stated anywhere - and then yesterday I finally understood that I had to pay a deposit to be able to do anything. So I managed to fill in the forms, bring the deposit money and get going today. It was a lengthy deal including 3 different offices and half an hour listening to the librarians discuss whether 5.000 rupees was enough or whether I had to go back and pay 10.000. By the end I managed to get all set up, so I approach the desk with the 3 books I'd reserved since yesterday. One was a reference book, fine. But that's when I lost my patience, because I can apparently only issue one book at a time for one week. I really don't know how I'll manage being a student here. LPEs here I come (that's short for Low Price Edition - the kind of book which can only exist in countries without copyright laws).

By the way. I need a friend called Joe to give this to, it's such a pretty note worth five pennies. Bad India Day is over. I think I'm okay now, maybe tomorrow I'll share some market finds with you.