Today I did what most girls love doing on a saturday: I went shopping.
I thought that 3 months in India should justify to invest in some traditional clothes, especially as my backpack doesn't contain lots of "appropriate" garments. There is that one harem pants from Zanzibar and a long skirt from Malawi, but the latter looks so African that I'm attracting attention with it. My shorts and miniskirt are no-go and the jeans are waaaay too hot.
I was toying with that idea for about 3 days but never dared to go in a shop. I feared to be laughed at or simply scammed... So today I plucked up courage and went in the store that looked not too cheap but with a good selection. I would have preferred to be served by women expecting more understanding and less embarrassment on my end, but whereever I looked I only saw men doing the job...
At the chosen shop I was shown all different designs of shalwar kameez, they ensured me that they could sew sleeves onto everything or alter the pants or whatever I need. But they didn't have a changing room... There were 2 types of pants, the tight fit was definitely not made for my chubby legs, so I chose the loose fit which looked like Beth Ditto would fit in it and I paid. I thought I better try it at home and if I needed alterations I might come back to them. A tailor is apparently part of every cloth shop anyway.
A little bit proud of myself but not completely happy I went to my favourite coffeehouse and for about 2 hours was sitting by the window, watching the university students passing and sipping my chai latte. Now that I owned a shalwar kameez and knew better how it looked "underneath" I checked out all the women passing my window regarding their clothes...
Unfortunately university students are young and hip and cool and western, so I saw them in shorts, tight jeans, even minidresses and I wandered why THEY were allowed to wear this but I would bee too conspicuous. Out of a sudden I felt very old-fashioned and thought to better invest in a summer jeans. But then again... All these women were either in a group or accompanied by men which I'm mostly not. And Mumbai is not India. Everywhere else I would meet much more traditional people and didn't I want to spend most of my travels outside of big cities anyway?
Luckily after 2 hours pondering I decided to give it a second try at a department store just across the street.
This was a much more expensive place, actually one of the kind I had tried to avoid. But changing rooms are priceless, aren't they? Around 3-4 men tried to persuade me of different designs and cuts and didn't understand why deep purple doesn't suit me, why long sleeves are not wanted or dark colors and why these Europeans have so big feet...
As I'm considerably bigger than the average Indian woman (I mean I'm even bigger than the average European woman), it was kind of embarrassing to try the clothes. The tight fit pants were so tight that I couldn't squeeze my feet through the pant leg and when I did it was alarmingly tight around my calves. The loose fit was so big with lots of cloth around my bum that I felt like a balloon... And of course they were giggling and discussing about me in Hindi, but I tried to smile it away.
To cut a long story short: I bought 2 more sets in different shades of green. Each set for 6 times the price of my first bargain. But they had it altered for me (wider legs, slits at the end for my feet, short sleeves etc) and they didn't let me go without bangles, earrings and hairclips in matching colors...
Look at the result:
(Sorry for the bad quality but I can't take self-shots from the distance with my smartphone, so all I could do is a homesession with my webcam which is rubbish as you can see)
Now I only need to have the courage to wear it on the streets :-)
I thought that 3 months in India should justify to invest in some traditional clothes, especially as my backpack doesn't contain lots of "appropriate" garments. There is that one harem pants from Zanzibar and a long skirt from Malawi, but the latter looks so African that I'm attracting attention with it. My shorts and miniskirt are no-go and the jeans are waaaay too hot.
I was toying with that idea for about 3 days but never dared to go in a shop. I feared to be laughed at or simply scammed... So today I plucked up courage and went in the store that looked not too cheap but with a good selection. I would have preferred to be served by women expecting more understanding and less embarrassment on my end, but whereever I looked I only saw men doing the job...
At the chosen shop I was shown all different designs of shalwar kameez, they ensured me that they could sew sleeves onto everything or alter the pants or whatever I need. But they didn't have a changing room... There were 2 types of pants, the tight fit was definitely not made for my chubby legs, so I chose the loose fit which looked like Beth Ditto would fit in it and I paid. I thought I better try it at home and if I needed alterations I might come back to them. A tailor is apparently part of every cloth shop anyway.
A little bit proud of myself but not completely happy I went to my favourite coffeehouse and for about 2 hours was sitting by the window, watching the university students passing and sipping my chai latte. Now that I owned a shalwar kameez and knew better how it looked "underneath" I checked out all the women passing my window regarding their clothes...
Unfortunately university students are young and hip and cool and western, so I saw them in shorts, tight jeans, even minidresses and I wandered why THEY were allowed to wear this but I would bee too conspicuous. Out of a sudden I felt very old-fashioned and thought to better invest in a summer jeans. But then again... All these women were either in a group or accompanied by men which I'm mostly not. And Mumbai is not India. Everywhere else I would meet much more traditional people and didn't I want to spend most of my travels outside of big cities anyway?
Luckily after 2 hours pondering I decided to give it a second try at a department store just across the street.
This was a much more expensive place, actually one of the kind I had tried to avoid. But changing rooms are priceless, aren't they? Around 3-4 men tried to persuade me of different designs and cuts and didn't understand why deep purple doesn't suit me, why long sleeves are not wanted or dark colors and why these Europeans have so big feet...
As I'm considerably bigger than the average Indian woman (I mean I'm even bigger than the average European woman), it was kind of embarrassing to try the clothes. The tight fit pants were so tight that I couldn't squeeze my feet through the pant leg and when I did it was alarmingly tight around my calves. The loose fit was so big with lots of cloth around my bum that I felt like a balloon... And of course they were giggling and discussing about me in Hindi, but I tried to smile it away.
To cut a long story short: I bought 2 more sets in different shades of green. Each set for 6 times the price of my first bargain. But they had it altered for me (wider legs, slits at the end for my feet, short sleeves etc) and they didn't let me go without bangles, earrings and hairclips in matching colors...
Look at the result:
(Sorry for the bad quality but I can't take self-shots from the distance with my smartphone, so all I could do is a homesession with my webcam which is rubbish as you can see)
Now I only need to have the courage to wear it on the streets :-)
wow, 1001 nights is nothing compared with this look!
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