BENGALURU: Many may find it difficult to give up the comfort of their pyjamas during the lockdown, but fashion lovers in the city are busy dressing up for a virtual costume party. An Instagram initiative, Costume Party with S, is the latest trend that’s keeping many fashion enthusiasts going these days.
Started by Delhi-based stylist Spardha Malik, the trend has found takers across major cities. Malik says she had no idea that it would become a recurring online party.
“The first one was themed Birds of Paradise. I was tired of wearing loungewear at home all day, so I thought to invite some of my friends to play dress-up on Instagram and post pictures of themselves in tropical clothes to pretend we’re on a holiday,” says Malik, who has about 17,000 followers on Instagram, and drops the theme for the week every Saturday.
To be a part of this party, people have to dress up according to the theme and upload the picture on their stories by tagging her.
So far, there have been seven themes, including Saucy Grannies, Madonna, Maharanis and Maharajas of India, and ‘I stand with pink’ to support gender equality.
“The royal theme was great fun. It ended up being a lesson in history and heritage style. So many people from across India joined in. I was blown away!,” says Malik, who gets over 200 entries per party. For this particular theme, she got the maximum entries but couldn’t upload them all in her story due to limitations on the platform.
One of the frequent participants has been costume designer and fashion stylist Indrakshi Pattanaik Malik, who is known for designing costumes in the Telugu movie, Mahanati.
“When Spardha started it, she asked like-minded friends of hers, including me, if they would be interested. I was obviously excited,” says the National Film Award-winning designer. She adds, “For the first theme, we had to dress for our favourite beach city. Mine was Malaga, Spain.
I went about it like I was pursued a Ph.D thesis, and even made my husband dress in the costume.” For Bengaluru-based designer Nijhum Patra, it was a reason to dress up during the lockdown.
“It’s not just about getting the costume right, it’s also about clicking the right picture with the right edit and finding the right kind of costume to replicate. My husband helps me with it and now he has also been looking forward to the themes,” says Patra.
“Take the royal theme for instance. Spardha looked for a queen with whom she has some resemblance, and finally found a picture of Moha Bhakta Laxmi from the Bansi kingdom in Uttar Pradesh,” says Patra.