11.5.09

The dress: I had been looking for a stretch sweater dress for the last couple of years.

Finally, my prayers were answered when VS came out with their Fall 2009 collection. It fits perfectly on the bust, waist and hips. The boxed pleats are my favorite part. They can make any fabric look formal. This thick 100% cottonrib turtleneck dress didn’t need an overcoat in 50 F weather and I get cold very easy.

The cardigan: I’ve had this must-have-no-lint black cardigan since 2003 I think. Got it at Ross for about 13-20 USD. The quality has lasted through many washer dryer cycles.

The shoes: Have not found a good pair of gray shoes, not sure if I would wear gray on gray. Anyhow, Clarks calls these the “bendables”. Rightly so. My most comfortable pair of black shoes.

I don’t think I own a single piece of casual clothing in this gray. I do, however, love this shade of gray for work.

October 31 – 2008!!

After a week of 12-14 hour days and little to no sleep, my body finally gave up on me on Halloween itself and I am down with a nasty flu. So, I did not have a chance to dress up and have a costume this year. I was SUPREMELY disappointed because I LOVE Halloween, so I thought I’d share last years costume – I never did get to have enough fun with it, so I might just recycle it for next year…

From Style Per Diem

The Costume: I dont remember exactly how I came up with this costume, but once I had the idea, I knew exactly how I wanted to put it together. I searched high and low for a tube dress and finally landed up buying 2 brown tank tops, believing one would not be enough to cover everything, and I’d chop up the second one for the lower half. However, thanks to the extra-long tank top trend, one sufficed quite nicely. I went to my regular t-shirt printing store (Yes I have a regular t-shirt printing store!) and had them print ‘Tootsie Roll’ on the tank top in the right font. I then went to my now regular fabric store (back then it wasn’t!) and bought some shiny white trim- its kind of like very broad, thick ribbon.
Now please remember, this is all well before http://www.sewwot.wordpress.com was even a twinkle in my eye.

I proceeded to ruffle up the trim and attached it to the bottom as a frill and the top as a flouncy collar, both front and back. It served as the white paper part on a tootsie roll wrapper. I had some extra left so I made a little wrist band with a bow on it…to add to some sort of 50’s ‘tootsie’ look or something!

Now the red stripes! Thanks to my work I have acces to all sizes, shapes and colours of gaff and electrical tape. So I grabbed a roll of red electrical tape, put on the costume and then taped on red stripes! C’mon, its a costume! It doesn’t have to last beyond the night!

I curled my hair in tight curls, threw on black tights to keep the cold out and if I remember correctly, I wore my red wedges!

And taadaa! TOOTSIE ROLL! Still my most favourite costume ever. I swear I will wear it again next year!

Inopinate – October 29

This is going to be a bit of a twist. SPD’s primary purpose is to show off our triumphs in personal style. But who says we can’t have a little fun here and there? So, at ET’s encouragement, I am making an exception to give you my Halloween costume for this year’s party at work.

From Style Per Diem

Costume – Facebook Wall: I would have loved to do this with a dry-erase board so I could keep changing my status and let people keep updating my wall. But I have no room to keep a whiteboard in my already cramped apartment, so I favored the disposable cardboard instead. 

I knew I would need felt pens and color pencils. After some deliberation, I also picked up dark blue construction paper for the global nav. In hindsight, that was a great idea, because negative-coloring the lettering would have been a royal pain. I also made a second trip to the craft store to get a white ink pen. 

Once all the materials had been bought, the only decision I had to make was how I wanted to approach the profile picture. One option was to hang the wall around my neck with a photo glued in the profile picture position. But I was already going with a relatively low-effort costume, so I decided to take it to the next level and cut a piece out of the cardboard in the shape of my face. Again, in hindsight, this was a crucial point in the project. I miraculously managed to get the shape and size right the first time. Had I gotten that wrong, it would have been difficult to recover from. 

The rest was easy. I opened up my profile page and went about replicating all the UI elements the best I could. I was determined not to turn it into an architectural drawing, so I did not bother much with measurements and proportions beyond what looked acceptable to the eye. For my photo album, I used arbitrary pictures from magazines. My total effort was 4-5 hours over a course of four days.

Accessories: I carried a blue felt pen with me and asked people if they wanted to write on my wall. By the end of the day, my mostly blank wall had been filled up with messages. Success! 

Dilshad Burman – October 1

The weather was mild and in keeping with my determination to adapt part of my summer wardrobe for fall, I put together this outfit for a work/play day…

NB: Please excuse the quality of the picture. I WISH I had a better one.

From Style Per Diem

The shorts: Previously posted classic black walking shorts – easy to dress up or down! I layered them with some dark grey wool blend tights for warmth.

The sweater: Although you cannot see it clearly, this cowl neck, short sleeved, exaggerated raglan sweater is a gorgeous GORGEOUS shade of eggplant purple. Its turning out to be my favourite colour this season – as it was last  fall. I have since tried to get a better picture of the sweater but I need daylight, else it looks black!

The boots: My only pair of black boots, my dependable hush puppies. I’m looking in to some grey or slate ones – I wont get tan or brown – no likey. Anyone know where I can get size 5-5.5 shoes??

Accessories: I just have to mention – my hair looked fabulous this day! Um..also, I threw on this lovely thin key hole belt courtesy ET and birthday packages and a red faux snake skin cuff, which, if you could see, is also lovely.

This outfit allowed for much running about and comfy movement and I cant wait to wear it again, now that I have lighter grey tights to break up the look a little more.

Inopinate – October 24

Though my Boston trip was a wash SPD-wise, I came back with a small treasure trove for my wardrobe. I wore a couple of the pieces to a Windows 7 launch party this past weekend.

From Style Per Diem

Pants: Dark wash blue skinny jeans from Guess Jeans. I love the fit of Guess Jeans denim at my size, and this uniform wash has a nice clean evening look. 

Top: I normally go into a coma the second I enter Gap, but this time I was pleasantly surprised. I found this lovely printed top at one of their stores in Boston. Now that I have embraced skinny jeans, I figure I might as well do them right. This top has the perfect length and silhouette to complement a well-fitted pair of skinny jeans. I love the floral print and the paper bag neckline. The fabric has a slight shine, which did me in. 

Shoes: Much vaunted grey pointy pumps. 

Accessories: Fetish accessories have officially taken over. I wore this funky studded leather bracelet – another Boston find, my floating crystals watch, and carried a trusty old brown clutch.

Dilshad Burman – September 30

I am stubbornly determined to carry some of my summer pieces into fall, whether it be as layering, or the main focus. I cant say exactly why…I just don’t think I’m ready to give them up and settle into fall/winter. To this end I put together this simple outfit as basic work wear…

From Style Per Diem

The jeans: Often worn, OVER worn FAVOURITE bum flattering, ever perfect birthday jeans.

The sweater: I’ve always wanted a nice argyle sweater and when I saw this lovely coral/peach one, I couldn’t resist. As some of you may remember, coral was my FAVOURITE summer colour this year. Generously sweetening the deal was the fact that it was part of a summer sale at H&M, down from $35 to $10. I’m not one to care too much about what’s ‘in season’. I like picking up basic, classic and versatile peices and at $10, who am I to argue anyway!? I have been hoarding it since the beginning of the summer, waiting to wear it – not too impatiently though!

I wanted to wear it with a shirt underneath, but rather than go with a simple collared shirt, I layered it with my birthday ruffled cotton blouse to add some fun and frill to it. The sweater itself was not skin tight and disguised the rest of the ruffles well under it, without being too bumpy or lumpy.

The shoes: It was not too cold this day so I chose to take my black ruffled pumps for a spin.

Accessories: Aside from my silver dragon fly pendant, nothing worth mentioning.

All in all a classic work outfit done in bright, young colours with some flounce for fun!

17.10.09

We wear saris to office on Diwali, or at least some form of ethnic Indian wear.

Sari: A yellow and turquoise Rajasthani leheriya sari that unfortunately looks lime green because the colours come together when you see them. I bought in Mahabaleshwar for Rs 250 earlier this year. I chose it over my other saris not only because it was new, but because it was so light and didn’t get in my way at all.

Blouse: I often forget to have blouses made for my saris and just wear them with whatever I have. In this case, I didn’t wear a traditional blouse since the sari is diaphanous and my belly overhung. My canary yellow tee was the perfect solution and also reinforced the colour of the sari.

Accessories: *deep breath* sky blue kolhapuris, my mother’s blue meenakari jhumkas, 4 blue and two red meenakari gold bangles, diamond band, gold band and two diamond and sapphire rings, a long gold chain (a Diwali gift) with a diamond pendant. Each item of jewellery was of sentimental importance and co-incidently, was in Gujarati/Rajasthan style, threading the ensemble together. I’m not very fond of wearing a lot of gold and felt like a gaour.

Garage sale

I’m having a garage sale at Zenzi on Waterfield Road in Bandra (Mumbai) on the coming Sunday (25.10.09). A lot of the stuff found on Swasta Ani Masta (and seen here) is going to be there, along with other unseen (and mostly unworn) goodies. If you are in the area, drop by between 1 and 5 pm. If you’d like to set up a stall yourself, drop me a mail at swastanimasta at gmail RIGHT NOW, so I can get some infrastructure and drinks ready for you.

Dilshad Burman – September 29

End of September was already getting to be boot time, for me at least, but not quite cold enough for a jacket just yet.

From Style Per Diem

The jeans: Dark wash skinny jeans perfect to tuck into boots.

The top: I found this lovely coloured zebra top and had to have it because it reminded me of the unicorn on crayon boxes we used to get when I was in kindergarten. I layered it with a thin white long sleeved cotton sweater for warmth.

The sweater coat: Old Navy had a ‘cardi-coat’ sale and I went looking for something to act as a bridge between long sleeves weather and fall jacket weather. I found nothing there but the idea for a chunky sweater coat stuck and I found this lovely grey one at a buy one get one half off sale. I’m liking loose fits in some pieces of late and I dont mind the short sleeves on this coat since aside from ’sweater weather’, I’d never wear it without a jacket anyway. It has no discernable neck line and falls lazily to about mid thigh and I like the loosey-goosey-ness of it contrasted with the rest of the close fitting outfit. When I had to brave the winds, I buttoned up and threw on a bright pink scarf.

The boots: Last years mid rise Hush Puppies. Such a great investment. Still loving everything about them.

Love love loved this throw on and go look and I lament the passing on that short short week when I could go without a coat.

Dilshad Burman – September 18

Please excuse the quality of photos, a light in our hallway went out!

From Style Per Diem

The pants: Relaxed fit boot cut jeans, medium wash.

The top: This gorgeous eggplant vest was a Christmas gift from Ella on one of our first Christmases together. It still holds up. I layered it with a simple white shirt with puffed sleeves for a classic office-casual look.

The shoes: One of the last times I’ll be able to wear my beloved teal peep toes this year.

Accessories: I left in the usual silver, added my lovely two-tone anodized aluminium cuff and vintage black glass beads that I bought for about $2 at the flea market.

This was a nice fuss free, classic look for me which brought out some curves I was unaware of possessing.