I wore this to my cousin’s Shaadi last time, I am not wearing it again.
Saw her vacation pics? Doesn’t she have another dress or what?
Hello and welcome to Musings of a MasterNi, I am Minal Desai and here I share with you a medley of my unique experiences shaped by students teachers and life in general.
Heard such comments? Humans have always had a fascination with how they look. Dressing up and looking good, especially for an event, is an inherent instinct that most of us have. Especially women. But with passing time it seems to be taking gargantuan proportions.
I know of ladies who have it as a rule that they will not repeat the dress or at least not with the same audience. Given that most of us have about 3-4 sets of friends and colleagues, it means most of their dresses are worn and discarded after 3-4 wears? Imagine the wastefulness of the whole exercise?!
First wastefulness of personal energy, time and money. Imagine how much more productive time we could have if we didn’t have to think up new attires every now and then. And how much money we could save in doing so.
Secondly, imagine the wastefulness of resources at a global level. The more you keep consuming and discarding the more you herald ecological problems. Believe it or not, the fashion industry is one of the worst culprits of the environment with a carbon footprint that is larger than that of airlines.
Also, I wonder why, we, women have such expectations of ourselves. The men are very comfortable wearing the same black tuxedo or the khadi kurta pyjamas more than once. And we are okay with it too. But somehow not okay with us wearing the same saree!
Lastly, imagine what our children are learning while we discard one outfit after another. The girls are learning that they are only as good as their clothes. And if they repeat clothes, they are either out of fashion or too poor to afford new clothes. The boys are learning that girls always have to look new and fresh! As if they are a commodity.
And I have been a victim of this mentality too for a while, especially when it comes to shooting for our MasterNi videos. I would try and find outfits that I have not worn in the past but I soon realized that I spent way too much time fussing about it than I should. But I am work-in-progress and I realized that in some way I was contributing to the same old model that I wanted to break down.
And so, here I start with repeating outfits. On the video, at events and everywhere that I like. I refuse to believe that newness of my clothes signifies newness of thoughts.
And so today, I seek not your opinion or question you about repeating outfits but rather urge you to repeat. Set yourself free. The obsession with new is a cage, a fancy pretty one but a cage nevertheless. And so if you want to find out which outfits I repeat more often, don’t forget to subscribe to Musings of a MasterNi on Youtube and follow me on Instagram.
