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Revive Style

fashion, design and old world charm

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29th August 2017

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Oorja Makkad

Blogger | Designer
Millennial Sareephile
Indian Textile Aficionado

Musing on fashion, handicraft, sustainability narratives, cruelty-free beauty and eclectically homegrown design. Find me on Instagram @oorja.revivestyle.

#HANDCRAFTEDISBEAUTIFUL

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in case anyone was missing dresses on my feed 🍸 in case anyone was missing dresses on my feed 🍸
Tell me your favourite Christmassy movie/song ❤️🎄
#Drapember2020 Day 30: Christmas and it's a wrap ❤️ What a ride this was! THANK YOU 🍾
vintage, hand-embellished, hand-me-down lace en ro vintage, hand-embellished, hand-me-down lace en rose for #Drapember2020 Day 29: Lace 🌸 With tomorrow being the last prompt (Christmas, tee hee I'm ready for merry feels), this series gets over and I definitely need a nice long break from posting and sareeing. I've loved loved loved everything that all of you posted to this hashtag, thank you for putting chaar chaand on it all through November ✨
3 things I always wanted to try - shirtless blazer 3 things I always wanted to try - shirtless blazer, blazer with a sari, gold and silver - shot with one stone for #Drapember2020 Day 28: Hedonist 🖤 The molten gold handwoven silk-zari from @akaaro makes a repeat this month because it's my most sensual, and most excessive, Diwali splurge. Made sense for today's prompt! ✨ The blazer is a hand-me-down that I've been using since 2010!
but for a single golden stripe it derives all it's but for a single golden stripe it derives all it's understated grandeur from, this handwoven ghicha silk. Worn with two delicate adornments: dainty, vintage hoops and an even daintier gold mesh bracelet, both ransacked from mother's gold safe ✨ I know I'm in black, golden and gold, not exactly stereotypical to today's prompt. Let's call this minimalist decadence hahaha, maybe my wedding szn instincts are acting up! The stately elegance of a solid handwoven silk with it's subtle, natural, organic sheen often trumps all the noisy shimmer-glimmer of bling and surface ornamentation, doesn't it? #Drapember2020 Day 27: Minimalist
sunshine, flowers blooming, 29th February - my tru sunshine, flowers blooming, 29th February - my true birthday - was here and 2020 was a wondrous thing on this day. I was minimalist in a romantic lavender mul from @suta_bombay, just like Lata in A Suitable Boy (which wasn't released then but just saying haha), with pearls and pretty, pointy heels. I was excited about my gorg new purse, a gift from @saumya_sood, and there was wine drinking in the daytime and guaca at an actual Spanish restaurant. What a different lifetime, in the same year! I'm wearisome of my same old couch, walls, and jharokha, so I figure you must be too. In this section of 2020 that I am in right now, we don't get such beautiful, vibrant and blooming settings to take pictures in anymore! Birthday throwback for #Drapember2020 Day 27: Minimalist 🌸
Manderley dreamer. The kota evoked the forlorn, ic Manderley dreamer. The kota evoked the forlorn, ice cold teal-grey of the sea where she went down, and the high necked black lace; the Gothic romance of it all that always lured me in. The ornate, stylized vines handblocked on the sari evoke the old world glamour mantelpieces, panels and perfect symmetry in the Manderley of my imagination. The thrifted vintage blazer is for all it's wintry, foggy, misty feels. ⠀ ⠀ I first read Rebecca in 2014, as a yearny, Gothic-enchanted, dark romance consuming teen. I recently re-read it all over again, as a (yearny, Gothic-enchanted, dark romance consuming) adult. I saw both the 2020 movie on Netflix, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 Rebecca. Both movies have their charms and pitfalls, Hitchcock's has little to none in the latter department for me - save for the overacting (millennial eyes). Totally excusable keeping in mind presentism, that's just how vintage films are. I enjoyed how deeply they tried to stick to the book, line for line and word for word, in Hitchcock's Rebecca. The 2020 Rebecca is morphed for modern consumption, with all the sex and travel porn, but I'm no harsh critic (nor an avid consumer of cinema) and I honestly didn't mind the sexy, visually delicious take too much. Maxim in 2020's is an absolute snacc, I never imagined him that handsome when I first read the book but now my brain can't unsee Armie Hammer as Max De Winter. ⠀ The book really tested my patience on my second reread as a grown up, fairly sensible adult. How neurotic and exasperating the narrator's insecurity, low self worth, and constantly delusional projections are. I found myself lamenting aloud to her in curse words. But, I can't deny the underlying sense of resonance and empathy. I felt where she came from, and in one way or another, she was sometimes a mirror into my own self. Defining things I have felt myself, refining parts of myself to more sharpness and clarity by putting them to words. Hitchcock's movie remake is quite lovely, go watch it on satin sheets with a glass of red wine. #Drapember2020 Day 26 for my Manderley enchantment and highly questionable practice of making dark/sad days darker by turning to this for a distraction.
December will bring a subtle, nuanced, transformat December will bring a subtle, nuanced, transformation of this feed 🎄❤️ Excited!
An anecdote: As a guest at Lakmé Fashion Week tha An anecdote: As a guest at Lakmé Fashion Week that afternoon, I was quite likely the only one in a cotton handloom. This black drape is the very first saree styling experiment I ever did. I had just finished an Indian textile-centric internship with @artisanscentre which added fuel to my fire, all the wonderful mentors, designers and tastemakers I interacted with at Artisans' emboldened me to take seriously the task of making Indian textiles chic. This was me styling a non-traditional saree and photographing it to be part of this visual archive called Instagram, for the first time! Revive.Style began in 2016, but it's Instagram was an unsure collage of outfits, products, art, design school assignments and selfies back then. It would be a while - two years of exploration - before I got into seriously wearing, styling and posting sarees as a medium of conversation about slow fashion, mindful styling, and most importantly; knowledge about India's textile and artisanal heritage. Cut to 2020, in a black hand-me-down and hosting #Drapember2020! 🖤 I remember @fabindiaofficial reposted that very hazy pic on their social feeds which was such a HUGE excitement for me. I had 700 followers and only my friends ever noticed my pictures. I still remember some random woman commented that I had "ruined the grace of a saree" - because of the unconventionality of this look, perhaps - and that comment had triggered me for many days 😂 When I look back at my feed, I see aesthetics that I would never do today. Some pictures are so amusing, "why would you wear that that way???" I tell myself 🤦 We're always growing, evolving, learning to be better each day and each year. I'm so grateful for all of you who loved my work even during my chunky street jewellery, weird bangs, Brightness 200+ and Clarendon filter phase, and stuck around long enough to encourage it till today ✨🌸☺️ I am where I am, the love and encouragement I receive is the wind beneath my wings, and I'm quite glad to be here!
#Drapember2020 Day 25: Cottagecore. Picnic table g #Drapember2020 Day 25: Cottagecore. Picnic table gingham handloom gamcha, schiffli smocked blouson, handmade crochet beads from an artisan fair, fresh flowers from my window garden. If you know how to pay attention, life's a picnic 🌸
la dolce vita 🍫 lace, Swarovski and vintage Cas la dolce vita 🍫 lace, Swarovski and vintage Casio - you get two servings of 'Dessert' posts, since it's all about indulgence today #Drapember2020
Rose Falooda? A kota doria from the loveliest @bou Rose Falooda? A kota doria from the loveliest @boutiqueshakuns 🌸🌺💮🌹All kinds of golden hour and gulaabi for #Drapember2020 Day 24: Desserts. I got two gorgeous kota doria sarees from them, and I'd been waiting to finally get to wear it for a prompt. There's something about pink handblocked kotas, hits a special sweet spot! On that note, I miss going to South Bombay for falooda in Badshah and creative Crawford Market shopping :(
🌸 A freestyle-ish kashidakari which took it's s 🌸 A freestyle-ish kashidakari which took it's sweet time on the way to me from Srinagar, but was so worth the wait. I was instantly drawn to this lovely silk because of the uncommon motif style - lush, huge, organically designed blooms that seem to 'grow' in a natural flow all along both borders, just as it were a garden. This differs from the traditional style I'm accustomed to seeing, which has more ornamental and decorative stylization in how the creepers and vines are formed. Even the signature wavy border enclosed between two straight lines that one sees on every kashidakari isn't included in this one, which all makes it so refreshingly contemporary and darling. Ok I'm done justifying my late night, tempted-by-inner-demon-to-get-yet-another-of-the-same-textile buys ✨ Worn with pink and pearls! #Drapember2020 Day 23: Flowers, absolutely non-bombay girl outfit in bombay today 🌸
Today look's like 🌸❤️ #Drapember2020 Day 23 Today look's like 🌸❤️ #Drapember2020 Day 23: Flowers
'If someday the moon calls you by your name, don’t be surprised, because every night I tell her about you' - I was about to write very similar lines in my own words as caption this evening, and I suddenly realized this is coming to my mind not because of romantic originality (haha) but because I have definitely already read it somewhere. A few moments later I recollected this beautiful verse by Shahrazad Al-Khalij, something I found whilst going down a Tumblr rabbithole one moonlit night. It's #Drapember2020 Day 22: Moon 🌜 #SOTD is a moonlit silver kasavu, with a stripe of midnight black sky, and a touch of dainty silver polki. I've developed a new habit for jewellery shopping, whenever I buy an earring I always buy a ring to go with it, or vice versa, at the same time. I like how it makes it a pair, completing any outfit with ease like a ribbon on a gift. It also cancels the hassle of wondering what to 'complete' the ensemble with when you're getting dressed and have pretty earrings but absolutely nothing else for your wrists or fingers. With necklaces, I buy a necklace only if I already know I have studs to go with it. If I don't, and it's really beautiful and worth the investment, then I buy studs or a ring to go with that neckpiece together. Buying much less frequently, buying more expensive, higher quality, handcrafted jewellery in well planned strategic combinations when I do buy once in a while - that's my norm now. Long gone are those impulsive Colaba Causeway clatter days, and absolutely gone are the "let's just get it just because it's so cheap, I'll see later how to wear it" buys. This ring and earring are the same handcrafted jewellery tradition, bought from two different artisanal curators. A mindful jewellery styling and shopping tip for you, if it helps make accessorizing easier✨ The next moon I've got my eye on, is @anumerton's crescent moon pendant *sighs*
Pick your fav 🌼🌕 #Drapember2020 Day 22: Moon Pick your fav 🌼🌕 #Drapember2020 Day 22: Moon 1, handloom kota doria with tepchi and mokaish embroidery, 2, decade old kashidakari, 3, decade old crystal embroidered saree!
Did I do it justice? Vintage silk Benarasi. Though Did I do it justice? Vintage silk Benarasi. Thought I should embody what I waxed eloquent about in my previous post on old world and new world wedding aesthetics ❤️ @swaginasaree helped me conclude that this is indeed a #dilhaibenarasi! I tried a new open haired gajra hairstyle! Paired very minimalist with a dainty kundan ring, a Casio vintage watch, and kundan pearl danglers. The heavy silk does all the talking! For #Drapember2020 Day 21: Symmetry because of the beautiful little homes, arches, vases, candlestands, and whimsical darling motifs on this one in much symmetry!
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