India is a country which celebrates some or the other festival throughout the year. With so many religions and so many sects living together, one gets to enjoy the festivities all the year round:)

For Hindus, a big line up of festivals start in the beginning of monsoon and go on untill the winter sets in. Mostly all the festivals usually mark the beginning and end of different seasons.  For instance, holi, which is the festival of colours is celebrated because a lot of different states celebrate (yes, In India, different states have different culture!) their new year on that day; there is also one more religious story, which my six year old loves narrating and in addition, holi also marks the change os season- we move from winter to Spring and thats why on that particular day we play with water which signifies the beginning of Spring.

Similarly, this whole string of festivals which begin starting from Monsoon, also mark the change of season at every step. During the whole month, some people avoid eating yoghurt and cold foods as it is the rainy season, some people and now mostly in the villages, people also put up temporary tree swings:):) and middle of the month, in some states, women get together and fast for a day.

This is the day when we deck up and dress up, get henna/mehndi and chit chat or to really celebrate it in its true spirit, some women enjoy those swings as well. You can see some pictures below.

This is an artist’s rendition of the traditional festivities. Then, we have henna of course.

And Rangoli!

For me, usually teej, that is, the festival that I’m talking about falls on a working day, so most of the times, I’m not able to get any henna patterns on my hands, but I do make sure a few of the friends get together and chit chat over a cup of tea, all dressed up in our Indian Avatars:)

This is my Indian Avatar. My favourite colour yellow with shades of pink and orange. you can see it more clearly in the below picture.

Me and my love affair with side braids;) This tunic (my mom gifted it) is from an Indian brand called Good Things. Of late, this has become one of my favourite brands for ethnic Indian wear.

The tights are locally bought, I guess from Iconic and the Dupatta or Stole, you are not going to believe it, is a 10 year old piece which I had made for my wedding. One of the Indian salwar kameez had the same yellow orange combination and I got this white gerogette stole died in yellow at the ends.

I kept my footwear also very simple- a pair of copper flats from Tory Burch

I wanted to wear some traditional Indian jewellery and this is what I chose.

The bangles and the ear rings are from a street market in India. They are all handmade; you will typically find several jewellery makers sitting with their tiny kiosks on the street.

Do share your photos, if you also celebrated the festival and please please please don’t forget to tell me how do you find this look.

love

Katz