What is up, y'all?

I'm late on a lot of posts and content, but let's start with what I actually care about. 

This is NeoUrban Desi✨

What is Urban Desi?

     Around the 2018 era, there was a prominent online wave of South Asians pushing their culture forward in an attempt to promote acceptance of one's background, culture, and history.
     A movement for South Asians in the diaspora to connect with their roots in a loud manner. The urban desi era could be broken down into a few categories, including music, art,...and fashion.

     Indowestern fashion was becoming a little louder, with styles including sarees + jeans, tee shirts + lehengas, and normalizing wearing cultural jewelry on the daily, rather than reserving them for only ethnic functions. It was a statement online that showcased the fusion of western streetwear with an undeniable South Asian twist. 🥻🪷

     With all respect to the era, it is also undeniably dated. 😵💫 In my personal opinion, I believe that none of those styles have aged well. I've seen the saree + jeans combo die as quickly as it came, and the combo of the baggy tee tucked into a lehenga seemed a little too messy for me.

 
     The concept was there, but I couldn't find a photo of the execution that I still thought looked good. But then upon reflecting on my own fashion, realized that I wear traditional jewelry ALL the time, not as an Indo-Western fashion statement, but because I am too lazy to ever take them off!!! I wear juttis like every day, not because I want to wear a piece of my culture with me, but because they're the only flat shoes I own! 😂 Whenever it comes time to buy shoes, I ALWAYS buy heels. I haven't bought a new set of sneakers in years! What's more real than that?

     So I realized that maybe one of my biggest problems with all the old Urban Desi inspo is that they look too staged! Maybe they didn't feel realistic or like lived-in enough for me.
     Everything was posed, and because it didn't look natural, it becomes one of those dated outfits, like how we look back on cringe looks from our teens. I wanted to redo it in a way that looked fashionable and hopefully, what I produce will be something more organic and have that effortless, daily feel....

I was not successful.

     Lol, Ganieve and I wanted to do a bit of the shoot in a lehenga, but then Ganieve ended up liking ALL of our ideas and wanted every single one in the lehenga, so rather than a lived-in Urban Desi shoot, we ended up just doing a Dallas Desi shoot, and you know what? I'm not that mad lol. 

Presenting:

Dallas Desi Aesthetic

featuring my lovely, Ganieve 💕
(right click + open in new tab for full view)

Starting off in the most NYC-like park in Dallas...
📍Griggs Park (iykyk)

The petals were not our doing. Probably somebody proposed here.

     Since we wanted to rep our city, I thought it would be cute to get some shots with the skyline, but I had a very solid vision for golden hour. Unfortunately, it was a grey kind of cloudy sunset, so we dawdled around with the drone for a bit.

     The con of shooting at night is that my camera is mad old. My t3i does not do well in low light. 💀 The pro is that I was actually dying to shoot with flash anyway! As we go through the shoot, more likely than not, every flash photo was my request, and every none-flash is a Ganieve request 😂

I wanted plenty of detail shots, I wanted texture and patterns. Funny enough, this wasn't completely staged, we were kind of sitting and waiting for something to charge or the lighting or something.

     I did end up giving her my shoes so we could get a shot of both our mehndi, and I thought I was okay with my toes out..but it turns out, I wasn't lol, so I am only posting the edit with my branding on it. Fire photo, but def need toe covers heheheh:

Switched to my every day shoes so we could show off the mehndi we did a couple nights before.

My love wanted some degenerate photos, so we did some degenerate photos hehehe.

     I wanted to try a photo with the cigarette clinging to my lip gloss, which alas, was extremely hard to do. But I managed to edit it quite vibey, imo, which I turned into a few promos for my brand:

Lost in some nostalgic summer vibes for your Pinterest, I guess

     Might be the most degenerate photo I've had taken of me... I find it very pretty but also, I'm a little hyper aware of the nath. I thought it would be a good idea, because the more bling the better, but it was also HEAVILY used in the original Urban Desi aesthetic, and it does come off as corny to me, since I don't typically wear it, and therefore, it felt staged...but again, it's a very pretty photo imo lol!

     Anyway, we decided to move on and Ganieve was hungry, and I was so ready to change into something that felt more like me, so we headed to Fuel City Tacos, which since I only eat halal, I couldn't have anything other than elotes. We later headed to Velvet Taco so I could get the Nashville Hot Tofu Tacos 💀

Which brings us to...
📍Deep Ellum

See, for me, the second picture feels low key natural.
It reminds me of leaving Ramadan dawats with cousins for shakes at Hopdoddy's 😂

What says DALLAS more than the Deep Ellum sign (don't say the Eyeball...)? And you know what, honestly, some shots we took in the street....

They are beauty, they are grace, and to their dismay, they are from Texas heheheh

     I'm not mad! They actually came out pretty sick 👿 But this is where I set my mind that this is Dallas Desi, rather than Urban Desi...
I thought they came out pretty decent! I believe it was either a Sunday or Monday night, so the streets were far from the busy that I'm used to, and this median was sooo convenient, def will use again in the future 🤭

What I wanted

What they had me shoot (love the dreamy aesthetic, so I actually love the running photo. It's the flash-less abominations that have me toggling the lighting nonstop) lol

     And of course, our crosswalk photos. I had changed earlier when we stopped home, and I think that's more an Urban Desi outfit. Top is designed by me, sewn by my mama heheheh. It's made from some suit I thrifted years ago, and I do unironically dress like this sometimes (for parties/events!!!) 😅😅😅

That brings us to a close with a few honorable mentions:

Default Ganieve hand posture & jewelry shot

📍White Rhino

Okay, thank you for taking interest in my art. I will try to achieve my NeoUrban Desi vision next time, but next on my list is actually a redo of the Illipino/Swagapino era 💀🇵🇭✨ Until next time~