The Growing Demand For Streetwear Fashion Among Indians
India is renowned for a multitude of things- diversity, culture, food, and more. Fashion, state-of-the-art and noveau, is not one of them. Indian fashion brands are often characterised by cliché, routine, and repetitive designs especially for the growing youth who are revolutionising their consumer taste minute-by-minute.
The Indian youth get the shortest end of the stick when shopping for clothes. Too often does one go on a shopping site and find the same old designs we laid eyes on a month ago. The styles and patterns seem even more archaic, and we immediately cringe at the 2010-esque vibes that both the site and the products give us. Disenchanted thoroughly, we head over to Instagram– the one site which always has the now of fashion.
Here, we feast our eyes upon the streetwear, grunge, goth, and minimalism that fashion now has to offer. This is what appeals to us. We like the marginality and the rawness of today’s fashion, unfortunately rarely offered by any of the biggest Indian fashion brands. Where do we get the appropriate attire, appropriate style, and appropriate confidence to rock those outfits that our favourite influencers wear casually?
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The answer is almost nowhere. Most Indian brands fall pathetically short of having either ultramodern streetwear or sophisticated clothing. Most of us settle for these boring, old clothes disgruntled and frustrated at the incapability of the Indian market to capture our newest demands. Others head over to foreign brands which sell those gems that make our eyes glitter. These are, however, accompanied by the prices of literal gems; the cost of clothing abroad is absurd for most of India’s target audience.
A few exceptions still exist, the harbingers of Western fashion in India. They have been collaborating with popular influencers for the past year or so and have gained exponential growth over such a short timeframe. Conversely, these exceptions prove the rule even further. This unprecedented growth and demand for these unique brands starkly proves the redundant nature of mainstream Indian apparel, and the growing industry of Instagram-based clothing in our country.
As a 15 year-old Indian girl, I use my fashion to be rebellious. I am pretty sure contemporary opinion agrees with me. But that fashion must be unique, aesthetic, and absolutely revolutionary for it to be rebellious. If the biggest, and most reputable clothing brands are serving me the style my mother adopts when going to a kitty party, how am I meant to be rebellious? That is where Shirty comes in.
When we started Shirty, we never wanted to be yet another Indian brand that has all the problems that I just described. We didn’t want men’s apparel to be the typical “masculine” clothes (camo print, striped polo tees, etc).
We didn’t want to “sillify” women’s clothing and reduce them to the bibs for 2 month-old babies.
Women are claiming more and more of the fashion sector, especially the dark goth look that the West always inspires. We wanted to create designs that our age group actually wanted. Designs that we’d be proud to wear, designs that were motivating, designs that inspired confidence. We wanted to bridge that aforementioned gulf in Indian clothing- the “Western” factor.
We made designs that were minimal and breathtakingly simple. We made streetwear that’d astound everyone in a party. We incorporated Jap culture, cyberpunk, and anime because the world is now ruled by these. We also made a sleek and dichromatic website that would please any customer, not bombard them with sale flashes and advertisements.
In no way does Shirty claim perfection, or ultimate peak of modern fashion. But we are crossing steppingstones every day, trying to bring our brand closer and closer to your wants. Each of these changes and improvements bring us closer to that ideal of matching and surpassing Western fashion. We want to quench that thirst we feel when we scroll social media feed, only wondering where in India does one get these?
After all, India deserves the best- clothing and people.
Mahek Choudhary
uWu
The Growing Demand For Streetwear Fashion Among Indians