India styled
NAVKIRAT SODHIPHOTO: COURTESY ELLE/TARUN VISHWA
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What is the stylist’s contribution to the making of a lasting image?.
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Photo: Courtesy Elle/Tarun Vishwa
In the current mass celebration of fashion, with models as cultural icons and photographers as household names, the people really responsible for eye-catching images remain the industry’s unsung heroes. Yet stylists today are more influential than ever.” Edward Enninful, fashion director, i-D magazine.
Fashion itself was recognised as a formal industry in India fairly recently. It started with the establishment of the National Institute of Fashion Technology in 1986. Its momentum, though, has swiftly caught the globe’s eye. Behind that eye, these ‘unsung heroes’ work very hard to weave together the designers’ aesthetics, the photographers’ interpretation and their own vision to create images that make brands out of names.
More prominent
Malini Banerji, Elle magazine’s fashion editor says, “In the last five years, the role of the stylist in the industry — be it fashion, film or advertising — has become lot more prominent. It wasn’t recognised as being imperative or valuable to quite an extent, as it is today”
M Magazine that started in Delhi three years ago, has managed to create imagery that is redefining aesthetic in fashion. This owes largely, to styling. I spoke to its style editor Vijendra Bhardwaj, about the role of a stylist.
“To constantly and carefully observe and try to understand the visual environment we lived in, live in and might be living in; and then collaborate with creatives from varied fields — notably photography, film, music and art — to create visual moments that express, interpret and in turn define the communication and perhaps, the collective mindset at a particular time. Whatever the field of styling — clothing, coiffure, food, scenography — stylists visualise and lend varied interpretations to the depiction of the field, which is not a marginal factor, but a consistent part of its whole meaning,” comments Vijendra.
Once the idea of the image is conceived, the stylist works with the photographer to decide on production, lighting, backdrop and roughly how the shots would be taken. The location is determined. Clothes are sourced from designers in the country and abroad. Flea markets also become hunting grounds occasionally. Looks are put together. Suitable models and make up professionals are booked simultaneously and a date is set. At the shoot, the stylist works closely with the hair and make up person, who has previously been shown references for the desired look. Improvisation on the spot, maintaining calm in the bustle of models, music, assistants, and flashing lights and focusing on the original vision, make a stylist’s job similar and perhaps as stressful as a film director’s. There is no scope for losing concentration for that would mean distorting the vision.
Fashion styling in India is a newer but progressive area and it will take its own course to find its true importance. “In India, the idea of a personal stylist has started catching up. It is also the perfect way to promote brands and designers and to set trends,” says Malini. Increasingly, those who are often in the public eye have started relying on stylists to make them look flamboyant and in sync with the latest. They have become integral to films because the styling of the protagonists can shape the film’s image. Matthew Barney’s ‘Cremaster’ cycle is a brilliant example of this. Stylists can make a film aspirational, a look memorable.
Room for innovation
Gauging from the sales and popularity of fashion magazines, stylists carry the responsibility of originating ideas and setting direction. Therefore there will always be room for innovation in this field. Vijendra feels “it would be refreshing to see alternative perspectives and interpretations of visual clichés that have been dragging on for years. It is a profession that can pass on a message of possibility, not impossibility – and nothing is more unfortunate than when it turns into a banal, superficial job of homogeniszing and imposing uniformity onto people, thought and creation ushering in monotony, boredom and a yet again, A wave of the expected. We need not just a change in the profession but a change in the collective mindset”. He admires the works of Olivier Rizzo, Nicola Formichetti and Grace Coddington.
Charudutt Chitrak, a fashion photographer who shoots for leading fashion publications like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and M Magazine, feels that we, as a country are not yet done with aping. “To a great extent we are dominated by the West,” he says. “We haven’t come out with anything that is modern Indian. We either shoot saris in Jaipur with an elephant in the background or use heavily western body language. Nothing ingenious.”
Malini, who enjoys the works of stylists like Camilla Nickerson, Alex White and Tabitha Simons, is more upbeat and feels that though we have a long way to go, we are getting there.
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