Fashion, Makeup and Thingies

Fashion was always difficult for me. I'm taller than most girls (women) ...sigh... 25 and still can't come to terms with the fact that I'm no longer a kid, I have a 19yr old sister and a 16yr old brother and prefer their company to most others in my own age bracket but I digress.

 I'm thick set, always have been and I figure I always will be. I've only recently come to "like" my body in the sense that I'm comfortable being the way I am and I want to dress it up and show it off (dressed up of course). Out of health reasons I recently lost 15lbs on the P90X System and am no longer overweight but still fatter than the rest. P90X is great, 1 whole hour a day with constant moving and sweating all in my own living room and if I followed the routine properly I would be even lighter and stronger but I get lazy most days :P

Finding clothes that fit has always been an issue, if it wasn't too small it was too big so for most of my teenage years and earlier 20's Jeans and T-shirts were the "real scene" since I wouldn't draw any stares from anyone. At age 21 into 22 I lived in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK for about 11 months and absolutely fell in love with the fact that people there wore absolutely anything they felt like and no one gave a damn about whether it was "in-style" or not and no one minded any one else's business at all, especially not what they wore and how many piercings they had on different facial components. Plus in the UK the clothes fit! I finally found an appropriate size for myself.

My entrance into style (aka anything other than jeans and t-shirts) began there, at Primark (kinda like an English Westport but way cooler) since my student's budget couldn't afford Mark's and Spencer etc. I got skirts and knee high boots and wore them together with brightly coloured socks poking out the boot tops. Off the shoulder, brightly coloured and patterned sweaters and extra long tops that I could wear leggings under with boots or even sneakers. Some other Trinidadians commented that I was "trying to look like dem white pple or wat?" and maybe I was by trying to use their clothes and their styles but I absolutely loved it and couldn't care less what the few Trinis there thought.

That was fashion in England for me. Then it was time to come back home. Honestly I'm cautious of wearing the "wrong" thing here. I mean even when I see a girl waltzing down Frederick Street with knee high boots and leggings I stare and wonder if she's not dying in that in this heat but secretly I think I'm just jealous that I don't have the guts to wear that myself.

Even though I limit my love of European style while in Trinidad, this year I've found that I'm a little less inhibited. Since I know what sizes to wear now I have a collection of dresses from straight and short  to long haltered to short and frilly skirted. I traipse around in these things with ballet flats in all colours with big bows to no bows on the toes (I prefer flats since I hate being the tallest one there...something I need to get over since I've got a couple girl friends who are 2 inches or so taller than me and they rock 4-6inch heels wherever they go).

Then came the makeup phase. I wear glasses, can't see without them and I have a dry eye problem that restricts me from prolonged contact lens wear. You can hardly see my eyes behind these things so I never found it necessary to wear eyeshadow or eyeliner and all that stuff. I could never find a shade of foundation to match my skin colour 'cause I'm not brown, not white, kinda yellow but more pale, got pink areas around my nose so I always thought maybe I need someone to mix colours for me to get something that actually matched. Then I hate lipstick, it's sticky....my hair's always messy and falls about my face so it sticks to lipstick if I try to wear it and somehow most lipsticks are red and red just makes me look old I think.

After some pushing from my "professional colleagues" I began experimenting so that I might look more like the young professional woman that deserves respect rather than the young girl everyone thinks is a law clerk and not a lawyer.  I went to Sacha for some professional advice and was told that I didn't even need foundation except for maybe some concealer to make the redness go away and she gave me a shade that actually matched, well at least camouflaged a tiny area. Happy about not needing to paste my face over I bought one of those 3-shade eyeshadow pots and the girl told me about putting the medium shade over my whole eyelid then the dark shade in the corner and the crease of my eyelid then the lightest just under my eyebrows. Easy enough. I refrained from eyeliners since I couldn't draw clean lines on my lids with those pencils (and stabbed my eye ball a couple times).

The unfortunate part was that my glasses still blocked my eyes so the eyeshadow never showed anyway. So I googled it :D <--answer to everything.

And I found her : Michelle Phan :D . She's a professional makeup artist who makes those cool professional looks seem so easy! This is how she describes herself on her youtube channel :  I was born an artist, a self taught painter for 10 years and went through an additional 3 years at Ringling College of Art and Design. Makeup is another medium to me. Like Michelangelo once said "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. " . Instead, when I see a face, it's a canvas and I want to paint a masterpiece on it.: This is what really got me interested in makeup. I still don't wear foundation but I've gotten so into the eyeshadow art that I've gone out and bought all different kinds of brushes and colour palettes.

Other than Michelle Phan I love Klaire de Lys. She brings an even more artsy side to eyeshadow than Michelle plus she does tutorials on nail art and some hair styles.

Since getting into makeup and dresses I've branched out to accessories. I flaunt extra large earrings every chance I get and I even paint my own nail art (when I'm in the mood). Maybe sometime I'll put some pictures up here.

Honestly, even though I know makeup and girly clothes are not essential for a female to feel good about herself I believe that these things have made me feel more confident and comfortable with myself, regardless of how anyone else may view me. Of course none of my clothes, makeup and accessories, although girly, seem to be the socially acceptable norm...but I've discovered that love being extravagant, so who cares if I get stares :).

At the same time I'm still not as carefree as I'd like to be, I want to wear the European styles to their fullest here but I'm too chicken. Maybe one day ;)






Kai

Return to the proverbial Roots

Sometime in September this year a friend of mine and I submitted an application to participate in a program called the "Know India Program" (KIP). In short it's basically a three week long trip to certain states in India organised by the Indian Government and their respective Indian High Commissions in countries all over the world. The trip is open to all persons of East Indian descent between the ages of 18 to 26 who are either studying an undergraduate degree or already hold an undergraduate degree. The Indian Government pays for practically everything! All you have to do is pay for your return flight to India and after the program is completed they refund you 90% of your plane ticket. Of course you do have to participate in lectures, seminars and other "learning forums" wherever they take you but it is a wonderful and cheap way to see parts of India.

More information on the KIP can be found here: www.knowindiaprogram.com

After months of waiting not so patiently I finally received an email from the Indian High Commission in Trinidad this morning stating that my application was successful and that I should make arrangements to get to Delhi, India on the 5th January, 2011. My friend didn't make it though. He's pretty disappointed but the four persons chosen were all female so we're wondering right now if they only wanted to choose women this year or if he just wasn't "Indian enough" (<--jokes). 

In fact I think I'm probably not "Indian enough" for this whole thing. I draw reference to a friend of mine who participated in the program last September. She's completely engrossed in the culture of our East Indian Immigrant Ancestors. Not only is she a practicing Hindu but she also sings Indian Classical music (and beautifully as well!) and she's always taking part in whatever's going on out there to promote Indian Culture. From the way she spoke of the Program and the other people who went with her on the trip it seemed to me that everyone there either actively practiced the various aspects of their ethnicity or at least passively did so but still had immense knowledge about all things deemed "Indian".

This made me think that maybe this was the type of understanding you were expected to have of Indian Culture in order to qualify for this Program...but I'm practically the opposite! I was born into a Hindu family but as my siblings and I grew up we never practiced much of it save for some prayers once a year until eventually all of that stopped altogether. I don't even know much Indian type music even though it's played on a daily basis at full volume by some of my neighbours. I'm completely Trinidadian (Trini 2 d bone!) This makes me a bit worried that I may be at a loss for much of what might be taking place on the Program and whether I will "fit in" well with the other participants. I suppose I will cope with the apparent culture shock and hopefully learn a lot more about my ethnic culture and history. Maybe learning more about India will lend a better understanding of Trinidad culture, after all, half the population here is of East Indian descent. Well we'll see how it goes.

This January's trip begins in Delhi and I'm told will take us to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. I'm also told that they make sure to take all participants to the major land marks so the Taj Mahal is definitely on the list. Also apparently Bihar is the state from which the Indians who Immigrated to Trinidad came from (the Beharry's?) so I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about that place. The complete Itinerary is in the process of being compiled but the trip is carded to be completed on the 26th January, 2011. 

I can't wait! 

(c) Kai 2010
I may not know much about Indian Culture but I am in love with Mehndi Art. I can't seem to control that cone thingie properly but a pen works wonders ;)

Kai