Create your own style

Fast fashion is affordable and offers many options. However, it has its demerits too, says jewellery designer Pallavi Dudeja Foley

We all enjoy fast fashion, and why shouldn’t we? It is a brilliant idea that brings international fashion trends to all of us; we see it in two weeks from the international catwalk to the stores.

Keeping up with the times, it is also affordable, allowing us to buy new styles more often. I enjoy shopping at the fast fashion stores and find it outstanding that how brands bring out new designs and trending silhouettes super fast, and before we are bored of that garment and style, a new trend is already there on the shelves for us to experiment with.

Fast fashion has its merits, however, one of the downsides of it is that people tend to get bogged down or get addicted to buying everything that comes in new. It tends to have us clutter our wardrobe since it is affordable, indulging in more and unnecessary things.

So fast fashion is a fantastic deal as long as you stay true to your personal style and pick up what works for you and not because it is trending. Your avatar is important, it is you. So define yourself carefully, and choose the trend you want to buy into and not every trend that comes on the shelf. I have always understood fashion as art.

Thinking of yourself as a canvas that you are going to paint makes a great method of dressing and expressing your fashion choices.

Addressing the question about how you want to look and visualizing your entire fashion-aura in your head before you pick up clothes and accessories is important to create your avatar. Remember that fashion is communication; you convey a lot about yourself through your way of dressing.

Fine jewellery, on the other hand, is hard to put into this model of fast
fashion, thankfully. It is one of those categories in accessorising that takes months to design and create. Since it is expensive and can be bought online, you can only buy what you truly fall in love with. So it reminds us to think before making a purchase, and this pause is the moment that makes us look at what we are buying in detail; to admire and see the product for its design innovation, its finish, the textures, the colours etc.

Being a jewellery designer, I spend a lot of time sketching the jewel and then working with craftsmen to create the piece of jewellery. The diamonds are cut to the shape by trained diamond cutters, the setting of the diamonds or the gemstones is done by skilled craftsmen, the engraving, the textures, the forming etc. take time, practice and precision. The gemstones for the earrings are colour matched under the microscope and then checked in different types of lights, and the minute detail we get into for a single jewel is precisely what makes it so special.

I get to see the world of ‘the art of jewellery’ every day, and my comparison of it to fast fashion is only natural. Fast and slow fashion are both important, and I would say that blending them wisely is a wonderful way to bring out your personal style with ease.

Understanding what the two worlds -- fast fashion and the art of luxury/crafts offer and bringing them together by not becoming an addict of any, is up to us.

My advice is to stay clear on what you feel is your fashion avatar from the inside and only buy what you love.

Fast fashion can make you feel good by the sheer feeling of ‘seeing and being able to acquire it immediately’, but don’t let it make you miss out on the beautiful crafts of this world. Those things that are unique, and the joy of owning things that you will cherish for a lifetime.​