Style Me on the Street - Part 3

Images by Shraddha Borawake 

This is the last part of the 3 part "Style me on the street" project that I have been posting lately. We took it a bit further this time by processing the final images slightly [ok a lot] crazy. All Shraddha's idea and work. I love how it started with a styling project of fashion, then became a performance of sorts by doing it on the street and involving strangers to participate and then became a composition by making the participants form a picture frame in real life by posing and ultimately in this series, the pictures are further edited to take on a whole new artistic look and composition. 

Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this project. Love Ji [our friend] sleeping on the floor in the first series and the guy with the orange poster. He walked up to us to participate and had this poster on him that Shraddha asked him to use in the picture. The girl styling me in the first series put bindis of all different colors all over my face. I think that looked pretty awesome. The lady in the last image on the right has a pretty cool blog herself. Her name is Anjula Carrier and you can check it out here. 

Style Me on the Street- Part 2

Images by Shraddha Borawake

In this project that I told you guys about last week that we did where we asked strangers on the street to style me from a bag of things that I had with me, this is part 2 of the series. There is one more. But I have to say of all the groups we stopped and encountered that day, this was the fun-nest. These guys went all out on styling me. Drawing on my face with an eyeliner, adding their own make up, making me wear the girl's leather jacket, etc. They even put on bindis themselves to support Don't Shoe Me. The icing on the cake was that the girl told us at the end of the shoot that she had a bag of confetti in her tiny purse if we wanted to use it and my first reaction was, "Why do you have confetti in your purse?" and her response was, "Why the hell not?". Love New York and it's people. Life is great here if you can just find a way to survive and open up your minds to take all it has to offer in. 

Style Me on the Street- Part 1

Week after week for the past 3 plus years I have styled myself for the blog and it has been awesome because I can see the progress made in my own style. But just to switch things up a little my favorite collaborator artist Shraddha and I decided to do a street styling project. The idea was to have random people on the street style my outfit. I had a bunch of arbitrary items from my closet in a big bag and we stopped complete strangers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to style me how ever they liked. That was just one aspect of the idea. As the styling was happening Shraddha also added some other strangers to participate in each shot. There are random people doing different things in each shot, all of whom where asked to participate in the shot on the spot and were given directions on how to pose. So every frame is composed by Shraddha with random people and all my outfits/ makeup are put together by complete strangers. 

Since there were a bunch of people we stopped I am going to post each group of people as a separate story.

STORY 1: 20 DOLLAR SHOOT

Our first encounter was with "The Queen of Williamsburg" Leonora Russo. She is an 87 year old extremely stylish lady who caught our eye and we asked her if she would participate and she totally obliged. I just looked her up and she actually has a documentary made on her called "The Queen of Williamsburg". This is the outfit she came up with. Guy on the right under the book was a tourist and the guy from the window of the cafe was just having coffee there. 

 STORY 2: TAKE 2

My second stylist was this incredibly creative girl with her sick outfit and hair, selling some stuff on the street alongside her friend [lady on the left of picture one sitting on a chair] who was selling her jewelry. She styled me with that first outfit and didn't like it that much and then she tried on the second outfit which was to her satisfaction. I love it. BTW, please to be noticing the older couple in the background shooting each other. Again passerby tourists who indulged us in creating an interesting scene.

STORY 3: HERE IS YOUR COFFEE MADAME

My next stylist was this super flamboyant dude who I am sure is a stylist by profession or is atleast related to the fashion industry. His personal style was so cool and he went through my entire basket to find the perfect things to make a chic outfit. He made me pair my black skirt with a sequin Comme Des Garcons top and my fur around me neck. The girl holding the coffee cup was his friend. The other three girls were shopping in the store next door before Shraddha caught hold of them.

STORY 4: NO STYLIST NO CRY

 

So as you can see that my outfit here is the same as the series above. It was because we couldn't find anyone to style me. Every one had somewhere super important to be. So we just found the people who wanted to participate in the picture. We found this cool couple who were coming back from their workout and this gorgeous photographer guy who was wandering about and our friend Ji who lives in the neighborhood.

The rest of the stories and encounters will be posted in the Part 2 / 3 of this series. Cannot tell you how cool they are! But until than just know this was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Blogging alone isn't enough. Fashion alone has never been enough on this blog. Creating experiences is so much more important. I love that I have awesome friends and artists around me who are always ready to collaborate and make things happen just for the sake of art and being creative. 

All images by Shraddha Borawake. She is the best!!!!! 

Check out her blog http://musttkalandar.blogspot.com/

Connecting The Dots: Street Fashion

Images by Prutha Raithatha 

Can we all please take a moment to recognize the brilliance of this woman's outfit and look. I love the drawings on her shirt and shorts and her hair. The overall cool of her outfit is quite and rare. I love it.

Off The Runway: Street Fashion

Image by Prutha Raithatha

Hot Chick Alert: Street Fashion

Images by Prutha Raithatha 

This girl's outfit rocks my world! Especially that shirt with the white color. Who makes it? Anyone know? I seriously want to recreate it for myself. Maybe I should just ask her to style me. LOVE IT!

Faustina Rose: Street Fashion

Images by Prutha Raithatha 

One of the most original people at fashion week. You can find other images of her here from a previous season. Faustina is a stylist and a super creative one at that.

Across the Zebra Crossing: Street Fashion

Images by Prutha Raithatha 

While roaming the streets of London one day with my cousin, we bumped into this fantastic lady. I saw her across the street from me and knew I had to stop her for some pictures. So when the walk sign came on, I stayed on my side and waited for her to cross over. Love the grunge look. And I like the idea of yellow instead of red plaid. I want that coat!

Brick Lane: London Street Fashion

Images by Prutha Raithatha 

Walking down brick lane on a recent trip to London.

Working Men: Street Fashion

Some free lance porters who carry goods in the basket that they are sitting in over their heads for money. They work really hard all day scanning through the over crowded streets of Mumbai to delivery things from one place to another. So when they do get a moment to rest in between jobs, they use their baskets as their seats while waiting for the next merchant to come along and hire them.

Just sharing some scenes from my trip to India. 

Rosetta: Street Fashion

Image by Prutha Raithatha 

The one place that you cannot ever get fed-up of in Bombay is Nariman Point. It is a long stretch of a retaining wall along the Arabian Sea that you can sit on and watch the endless ocean and beautiful sunsets. I was sitting there one evening with a friend, just catching up on our lives and this little girl came from behind and almost shoved her roses in my friend's nose. She wanted him to buy them for me, but I guess she also wanted him to smell the roses first. Although my friend didn't want the roses and neither did I, I was laughing so hard at her sudden appearance from behind us and the shoving of the roses in my friend's nose that I decided to take a picture of her on my iphone. She was happy to pose but then ultimately got shy, smiled and said thank you after she saw her pictures on my phone and ran away. I don't know why but her look reminds me of M.I.A [as a kid ofcourse]. Love the hoodie over a satin frock and her purple shorts peaking from under her dress. Too cute!

PS: I have had a blast of a time in Mumbai on my so called "vacation" which has been more packed than my usual days in NYC. And I cannot wait to share the stories with you guys, unless you've been following my updates on twitter and facebook in which case you know a bunch of it. Now in London for a week for some real downtime and relaxation. 

In the Jungle: Street Fashion

Images by Prutha Raithatha 

Fancy any woman wearing a bindi. Love the dark lips and the hipster look with it. The acid wash jeans on the guy look great IMHO. Notice the big horizontal ring on this fingers. It's all in the details people. I say that way too many times. I know!