The Style Mavens

By Richa Bhatia

Here are some funky bloggers who flaunt their personal, outre style. There is a 15-year-old schoolgirl who is loaded in logos, a stylist who tells you how to live your eyeliner and a Mizo girl with a sharp sartorial sense

Arushi Khosla’s bio reads a little like that of a flashy fashion editor strutting around in her Stella McCartney pumps. The list on her one-year-old blog Fabblab goes like this: fashion writer at The New Black , fashion journalist for Haute Mimi International , contributing editor for Fashion Tribes, so on.

In real life too, the self-confessed “Rodarte-struck teen girl”, (Rodarte is the award-winning fashion label run by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy whose favourite is the diminutive American teenage blogger Tavi Gevinson, fashion icon), functions almost like a fashion-insider. She is all of 15.

This style-obsessed Class 11 student of Modern School is loaded in logos — $90 Topshop jacket picked up from a recent vacation at Singapore, Steve Madden shoes and a chic tunic by newbie UK label LALL London that the designer Gurdeep Lall graciously sent her to “review”. She loves to play dressing up but trusses herself only in high fashion labels.

The latest update on the blog shows the schoolgirl togged out in a parrot print Motel Camilla dress, a Rachel Bilson (American actress of OC fame)-inspired sequined boyfriend slouch blazer, Kazo waist belt, United Nude neon green pumps. It is a look more suitable on the New York streets rather than her Noida home terrace.

“I guess the reason why the blog is so popular is because it is honest, it inspires one and doesn’t dictate. Also, on a blog one has the freedom to write whatever one wants,” says Khosla. She agrees she’s not really an “academic person”. “I am okay at grades,” says Khosla. But she has also invented the word fabulosity.

Khosla is one of the bloggers who’s making news with her ramblings about her sense of style, posting pictures of her latest finds and the current goings-on in the fashion. So far, she has 250 followers with 500 daily hits. “My style is very contemporary, not high-street. I shop heavily online, from Net-a-Porter and don’t scrounge around thrift stores,” says Khosla. Of late, Khosla has emerged as a trend-spotter. Motel, Pleasure Doing Business, Lena Erziak, Lorick New York, Tuleste Market, MaxStudio, Mash NY, 1986 and United Nude are some of the international labels that she reviews for and the girl even managed to snap an invite to the Zara store launch in Select Citywalk. “Reviewing is the fun part of the job.

But I generally do that for unknown labels” says Khosla. Fabblab is a great place to watch out for young talent.

Internationally, fashion bloggers are the fashion’s new elite, snapping front-row invites, sitting alongside the icy Anna Wintour, WAG queen Victoria Beckham and having photo moments with fashion’s great Yohji Yamamoto. In India, the scene is still nascent. Says Rinyaokhan Jajo, fashion insider: “ In India, there’s not much happening in fashion blogging. Today, it has become a lot to do with marketing”.

Perhaps Vir Shete, 18-year-old hair and make-up artist cum stylist from Mumbai, is one such blogger who welcomes all positive attention. His blog virshete.wordpress.com , started in February, documents the latest in hair and make-up, dressing up people in styles ranging from classic to goth glam and colour play. He has also listed a beauty regimen, a guide to “Live your eyeliner, breathe your lipstick”.

“For me, it’s more than a blog, it’s my portfolio so that my work can be seen by others. This is how I market myself,” says Shete, a self-trained stylist, known for his androgynous style.

His blog features five looks including the Victoria Beckhamesque evening walk look with the pooch, kitted in a neon pink shirt, belted blue shorts and high-waisted trousers. Shete’s style has attracted an army of fans.

“Sometimes my style comes across as a little strange. Maybe because people are not so out there in India as they are abroad,” says Shete, one of the few sartorially evolved guys.

Amid the highfalutin noise of fashion, there is a shy blogger too, who loves to cover her face on her blog.

But there is nothing coy about her style. Esther Fanai, a 21-year-old Mizo girl studying English in Miranda House, reads Homer by the day and blogs about “grey pieces on top of grey pieces” with an oversized bow at evening.

Fanai puts together cutesy ankle-length peach socks with a skirt. Her wardrobe is simply put together, often from stuff scrounged from Sarojini Nagar. “I like blogging about fashion but I am not planning any career in this field. I plan to pursue higher studies,” says Fanai, whose younger sister Annie clicks her photos.

Check out her blog lahlahishere.blogspot.com for some fun dressing.