Urban Jungle

Top: Anokhi, Jewellery: All over India and Bag: Kutch

This is one of my favourite ways to wear oversize tops/ kurtis; with shorts, boots, a bright hand-crafted bag and heaps of jewellery bought during various trips. I love little islands of green in urban settings, this place is one such isle, so lush but literally in the middle of a bustling city. I can't get enough of enchanting oases and creative use of indoor and outdoor spaces= that result in picturesque corners like this one.

I've been trying to get creative with my balconies, investing time and money into better pots etc and can't begin to make a little vertical garden but it's been busy the past few months. One of my friends has given me a few plants that I've been wanting to grow for ages, thanks Bee and I really want to create one of these magical jungles in my home.

Do you have a green thumb? If you do please let me know your tips for fabulous indoor and outdoor greenery. Hope your weekend has been fun and relaxing. Have a great week.

Bandhani Lehenga

It's starting to get greyer and colder here, and when that happens something flouncy and colourful needs to come out to play because I can't bear dull grey clothing. Here's to colourful lehengas, multi-hued shawls, hand-loomed wool, Bandhani, Ikats and Kalamkaris for winter. Going to the beach isn't solely a summer activity, spending hours by the water is calming for my soul.

Can you tell from my hair in these photos that it was windy and my hair was blowing all over the place? It was, I basically constantly had a mouthful of hair. Hope you've all recovered from your long weekend and having a great week :)

Incoming storm

I love kurtas is a major understatement, I could use the word obsessed but I am trying to avoid words with ableist connotations. But I can tell you this, I constantly dream about kurtas, the designs, the fabric options and how I would style them. I've only been back from India for a few months and I already have fabric and sketches ready to update my kurta collection for my next trip.

Lately I've been wearing heaps of kurtas with curved hems and longer tail. And I absolutely refuse to call kurtas; tunics, if the world can learn to say pyjama and jodhpurs we shouldn't have to use tunics when we mean kurtas.

I think its high time we wore more than just short kurtis to work. Cotton anarkalis in my opinion makes great summer dresses, Patiala salwars make wonderful relaxed pants, churidars make great drop-crotch pants, sarees make wonderful evening wear, cholis/ saree blouses make interesting crop-tops, I could go on but you get the point.

I genuinely don't understand people who keep their traditional clothing for special occasions or just wear them during ethnic get togethers. I dunno why anyone would want to blend in. The silk kurta in these photos is ages old and as is the beaded necklace, I have worn it before here.

Jungle Vibes

I almost blend into the foliage in this top, it was made with fabric from a blouse piece. I love the bandhani saree it came with, the parrot green colour looks stunning worn with anything but I'll probably say that about any bandhani piece, I love bandhej in every colour. I have bandhani sarees in many shades of green, love wearing the all kinds of sarees as well as blouses/ cholis together as well as separates as you've seen here, here, here, here and here.

I believe that sarees as well as their blouses make great statement as well as staple pieces, it just depends on the styling. Trust me if anyone tells you otherwise they have no idea what they're talking about. This bright orange carpet bag is what dreams are made of and I've had it for ages, but love it more everytime I bring it out to play. As usual I am wearing nothing special but tried and tested pieces that will stay with me for many many years to come, I have no desire to shop for a new wardrobe every time the season changes, I will just continue to buy hand-crafted goodness when and where I can find it.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week, I've spent the day stomping about in fern covered jungles, so I am happy. Have a great Saturday!

Kalamkari Cape

One of my favourite fabrics in the whole wide world is; Kalamkari, which is a kind of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, produced in India. It is my absolute favourite and I have everything from kurtas to shirts to capes to gaghraas and even wall-hangings in this fabric. In most cases vegetable dyes are used to etch these amazing designs on fabrics and you've seen me wear a duster in this fabric here. This fabric gets softer and more wonderful after umpteen washes making the designs stand out more.

In the above photos I am wearing a cape tailor-made to satisfy my twirling needs, I feel like a pixie running about in my cape on the rocks by the water.

Bandhani for my 200th post

I love wearing cholis and saree blouses as tops with jeans and love wearing tee-shirts and sweaters as blouses with sarees. You would have seen cholis with denims here, here and here and a sweater with a saree here.

I don't see the point of wearing certain things in pairs just because that is how it has been done for decades. I believe in having fun with things and playing with silhouettes and proportions as well as putting things together in one's own way. My latest favourite is wearing a Rajasthani type long Bandhani choli with denim and I can say that I am obsessed with this top. It is made from a Gajji silk fabric, which means that it is a satin weave done on silk fabric. It's really soft and I love the deep green colour and the subtle Bandhani designs.

I have had a few things made in this fabric and they are all beyond lovely. The top is worn here with drop-crotch boy-friend jeans but trust me it looks great with shorts, skirts as well as skinnies. These leather slip-ons are from Bali and all the silver is from India, mostly designs from various tribes in Gujarat and Rajasthan.

I hope everyone's had a lovely festive season and are excited about what 2016 will bring. Have a great Sunday :)

Pochampally & Kutchi embroidery

Pochampally, is a group of many many villages, in Nalgonda in the South Indian state of Telangana where skillfull weavers on traditional hand operated looms make these amazing woven fabrics. They weave stunning silk sarees and cotton fabric that I constantly dream of and ensured that I picked up a bunch of this fabric during the Hyderabad leg of the trip. This top was made from some of the Pochampally ikat fabric I fell in love with, it is a simple shirt/ kurta that I can wear with denim or churidar and dupatta or even wear to work with a skirt. I love the fact that slowly I am creating a wardrobe that includes things that I consider staples; ikat, block-print, bandhani, leheriya, shibori, traditional embroidery etc.

This bag is made by the ladies of a tribal group in Kutch and was picked up in Dhordo a tiny village in the Rann of Kutch. I am currently in love and wear it with everything. All the jewellery worn in this post is silver from various silver-smiths who cater to and specialise in designs specific to certain tribes. While I was walking around the markets one day, an older gentleman was very confused as to which tribe I was from because I was wearing jewellery from three different tribal clans. The cuff that I am wearing on my left wrist is something I haven't taken off in over a year and the jumbled bunch that is my anklets stay put all through summer. I am also wearing a hooked clasp silver key ring at the waist similar to a 'chatelaine'. It is called 'Chabi ka Challa' or 'Chabi ka Guccha' in Hindi I think. The lady of a house wears one of these with all the important keys of the house. Depending on their socio-economic status these could be of 22 carat gold with precious stones or silver with semi-precious stones.

I just don't see the point of changing things that are already perfect. Instead of trying to get my hands on what's trendy every season I try to source traditional jewellery and handicraft items that will last me for years and something that will hopefully be passed down generations. I'd rather spend my money ensuring that traditional craftmanship remains profitable.

I am wearing these with Kolhapuri leather chappals that I bought from a street stall in Colaba, they are destined to be used like crazy over the summers to come. I wish one day I am able to spend extensive time in some places with a rich textile heritage and master some of these crafts, until then I am going to live in them and hope the magic of creating beauty rubs off on me.

Travel diaries; Navlakha Temple, Ghumli, Gujarat

The temple in the above pictures is the 'Navlakha Temple' in Ghumli, Gujarat. Built in the 10-12th century AD by the Jethwa rulers of Saurashtra/ Gujarat it is dedicated to the 'Sun God' and is the oldest Sun temple in Gujarat. In my opinion it was spectacular, just rose out of the foot-hills in it's amazing ancient glory.

It is an important archeological site and we quite enjoyed exploring it one afternoon! Some-times I think India is so vast and there is so much beauty, in my lifetime I'll not be able to explore it in it's entirety. I am going to try my hardest though, this trip was full of visits to amazing places and it has made me even more determined to see more of this world! I long to be a permanent nomad, exploring and spending extensive time in places I like. But then I remember I need to earn a living.

Clothes-wise I stuck to the tried and tested bright long-kurta with jeans combination for ease and fun. These pictures don't do justice to the beautiful temple and it's surroundings barring the fact that the rubbish dumped around sites like these by people who come to visit, makes my blood boil!

Spring, I've missed you

Spring is here and I can't wait for my mini-garden to start blooming again, wearing lighter layers and in eight weeks going home for a visit. I have waited over a year for this visit, planning things down to the last tiniest details, dreaming about the moment I will re-unite with my family, celebrate festivals like they're meant to be celebrated, make rangolis all over the house with my sister and generally just forget the nastiness in the world.

In the meantime I am going to wear as many layers of jewellery, more block print, excessive amounts of batik, embroidered bits and bobs while frolicking on isolated coasts sunning by rock pools. What are your spring plans?