(more...)
So it’s a bad time all over the world, for almost everyone, from the zillionaires who have slid down the rich-list to more ordinary folk who have chosen not to be rats in the everyday race to nab that necessary paycheck each month. Prices are down, inflation is down, the headlines say cheerfully one day, and the next they are talking about how many people have been axed from which company that is closing down operations in which country. India is no different, though there is a small degree of insulation against the very hard knocks and the government is in high gear making life easier in exchange for precious votes. Along the way, belts have been tightened, budgets have been cut and spending has slowed, to a great extent, on a very personal, individual level. That is not to say, of course, that people are not indulging themselves, crawling the malls, occasionally picking up bits and pieces that they don’t really need and burning plastic like they always did – only for now it is not as frequent as before. Saving for a rainy day seems to be the mantra, and with the rain just a couple of months away, and the global economy with a big black cloud hanging over it, all the extravagance feels like it was once a very distant dream.
But it’s not all gloom and doom, financially speaking. Women have always been good at adjusting to life and its circumstances. It’s called the ‘Lipstick effect’, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, and has been seen every time there is an economic downturn, be it during the Great Depression in the United States from October 1929, after the catastrophe of 9/11 when grief and war clouds darkened the economy, or more recently in the current crisis. Since buying new wardrobes, new diamonds or new homes would be frowned upon by the financial pundits, women look for comfort in far smaller and inexpensive trifles, especially lipstick: red, for this time around, according to sales records. And trolling the city’s department stores or even just looking through the advertisements in glossy magazines available today, that seems to be a major must-spend right now, with special offers and sales galore.
Apart from the obvious pick-me-up that only a scarlet mouth can provide, women have other ways to fight the recession blues and make their fashion statements with their usual degree of élan, manage the home-work-self balance and still present a face that the world approves of and they themselves like to see in the mirror.
HOME: Maybe the glossies show you how to make over your home for a million dollars. It’s a bad time for money, remember? There is no million dollars to play with right now. Be practical: use flowers to brighten up corners, old dupattas work great as new cushion covers and children’s artwork is far more exclusive and appealing than that Husain or Kallat you covet.
WORK: Unless you are really exhausted and demotivated, your brain will always be ticking over. Find new ways to make old work fun, interesting, even impressive, by changing the way you approach an interview, the presentation you make for that dull toilet cleaner campaign, the pitch you use to sweet talk that new spending client into signing the contract, that loop you fit into the program you are working on to project the next quarter’s budget.
SELF: The best way to reinvent yourself is to exercise. The exertion released lots of good chemicals - including pain-killing endorphins to fight the fallout from that extra crunch you did – that bring the zing back, increasing the feel-good-ness of your day. And if it gets you into great shape, which will bring in the compliments, that beats the blues any which way! Apart from which, you feel terribly self-righteous, stop binging on that chocolate on which you spend too much money and put you back into those clothes that you had grown out of three seasons ago.
CLOTHES: The good thing about fashion is that it comes in cycles. Today you see saris with fancy designer tags on them that look amazingly like the stuff you inherited from your mother, who got them from her mother. If time has made the edges tattier than you would be comfortable with, a little cut-sew job will produce the perfect design effect, with an ingenuous combination of pattern, texture, fabric, ornamentation and weight. And vintage is always in, you know! Of course, you could also opt for the age-old paavadai-daavani (half-sari, chanya-choli, whatever) effect that is edging itself into centre-ramp these days. And if the saris don’t work for you any more, whatever you do to them, they will always make great curtains.
JEWELLERY: Vintage rules. If you feel that everyone has seen what you have many times over, do a little clever juggling and use that pendant as a brooch, stick that jhumka into your chignon, wind those pearls around your ankle, wiggle those rings over your toes.
MONEY: You may be careful with money right now, but while you save, how about checking out that new Tata FD interest rate? Get in touch with a reputed broker and find out what to invest in, reorganize your stock portfolio and figure out the intricacies of operating a demat account. Get smart with your finances.
In all this, there are so many options you can select to shrug off the blues. Adopt a kitten and giggle happily as you watch it grow up. Buy processed cheese instead of your usual gourmet fare and spend many good moments being nasty about its amazingly plastic texture and flavour. Pull out those ridiculous spike heels you bought on impulse and never wore and strut about the house in them. Do what you fondly imagine to be a belly dance. Plan what you will do with slush-money when the recession fades into better times and your increment actually materializes.
And slather on the red lipstick – it works best of all.
No comments:
Post a Comment