We don’t really need a dictionary to understand the meaning of the word ‘organic’ or ‘fashion’. Organic food, organic clothing and an organic lifestyle is the latest fashion these days. If these concepts are the latest fashion today – we at classystreet.com would very well say that our grandmothers and our great grandmothers and our mothers were extremely fashionable women!

Fresh piping hot food cooked from farm fresh locally sourced vegetables and grains was always served with a radiant smile and a dollop of home-made ghee. Delicacies, sweets and fried food marked all festive occasions. The food was always served on eco-friendly banana leaves or the leaves of the almond tree that were patched up and kept in place with tiny bamboo sticks. We ate with our fingers and our palms had a fragrant heady aroma all through the day. We worked hard, ate well and slept like logs.

Let us simply conjure the image of our grandmother in our minds and hearts. She wore clothes that suited the weather conditions of her region. A cotton saree was breathable. The drape of the saree was not only elegant and practical, but also a great source of comfort.

Women of that era knew their minds and tuned in to their hearts. They had a practical no nonsense approach. They wore clothes that suited them. They wore clothes that the people around that area wove with passion. Highly specialized work yet simple and elegant to look at, such clothes always had a classic touch of their local culture and traditions embedded through the strands of each saree. Soft to touch, cool to wear, easy to maintain and great to look at, women of that era looked stunning everyday despite wearing the most ordinary looking clothes regularly.

These women celebrated their uniqueness with élan and pride. Well-oiled hair, neatly braided or worn in a practical unique bun, that huge red bindi made out of locally sourced vermillion powder, that long red line of sindoor that adorned the parting in their hair, those glass bangles or those chunky sturdy tribal off white bangles that tinkled softly on their graceful hands, those huge earrings made out of local gem stones, those bracelet like sturdy silver anklets, those mysterious mystic tattoos that symbolized something that we could not decipher with our limited knowledge, that lovely sheer simple choli which did not even have a single button on it, yet had a tiny secret pocket to carry a little cash without worrying about taking care of a purse……my grandmother and all our grandmothers were fashionable ladies indeed!

They were mentally, spiritually, culturally, emotionally and traditionally strong women who – please read this with great care and at a slow speed – simply did not need to ape or imitate the women of another tribe or region or state or country or continent.

I am me, I wear what I feel most comfortable and good in. Such grand old ladies wore their attitude along with their attire. Such grand old ladies doled out a grand old feast within 4 hours that could put a five star hotel’s 5 course gourmet dinner to shame within three minutes flat. The food that they created with the freshest of ingredients was finger licking yummy and we simply ate with our hands in the most traditional manner. Beats eating with a fancy knife and fork any day. Try it. And be humble enough and open enough to acknowledge that there is a whole lot of truth in what we are trying to convey.

Perhaps organic clothing and organic food and anything organic is the latest fashion now.

We at classystreet.com beg to differ.

We at classystreet.com strongly feel that organic clothing and organic food and an organic lifestyle is a timeless ageless concept that simply does not conform to the norms of the fluctuating fashion trends.

We at classystreet.com believe that a woman always wears her attitude with her clothes.

We at classystreet.com have carefully put together a stunning collection of handmade clothes that any woman can pick and choose from and wear with great pride.

We at classystreet.com do not believe in using the jargon related to the fashion world. Perhaps organic clothing is the future of the fashion world.

But we at classystreet.com have always remain rooted and anchored in our culture. We project, portray, display and sell clothes, tribal jewellery and handicrafts that are woven and crafted by hand using the most local of products.

We at classystreet.com feel that the world of fashion took a long long while to realize the worth of indigenously sourced material and organic products.

Perhaps fashion designers around the world are creating a lot of hype around it by giving their collections labels like ‘eco-friendly’.

We at classystreet.com look quizzically at the flowing sweeping garments that lovely damsels with oodles of make-up wear and display at fashion shows.

We at classystreet.com always wonder if that simple tribal woman who crafted that material on her traditional loom got any kind of recognition for her skill.

We at classystreet.com also wonder if that simple tribal woman got a fair price for her skill and talent.

We at classystreet.com believe in giving recognition to the nameless faceless tribeswomen who toil day and night to craft such ‘organic’ clothes.

We at classystreet.com also wonder if we women can get around to doing any kind of work while wearing the outfit that the model is displaying at the fashion show.

We at classystreet.com cannot help but wonder if we women will ever feel comfortable while wearing such clothes.

We at classystreet.com really wonder – should we not be defining the clothes that we wear?

We at classystreet.com are amused that we let the fashion trends of the world define us.

We at classystreet.com genuinely feel that a woman and her personality and her attitude and her spirit and her culture and her beliefs and her confidence defines her looks and her hairstyle and her clothes.

We at clasystreet.com think back and realize that our grandmothers and our mothers never owned a single pair of high heels or machine made goods – yet they stood tall and oozed panache as they went about doing the most humdrum of chores around the house.

They wove in their creativity, passion, zeal, traditions and culture as they sang their traditional folk songs while working on the hand looms.

A single saree took 3 – 7 days to craft. But they loved and enjoyed the process. The dyes were organically sourced from the local vegetables or from the sap of specific trees or from the gum of the bark of a particular tree.

Tye and dye, batik, pattachitra, sambalpuri, kancheevaram silk with a temple border, Patola, Bengal cotton…..they had them all and wore them with care and pride.

The red vermillion dot and that smear of sindoor along with the tribal jewellery that they carefully crafted in their spare time were their only accessories – but they beat all the divas and the models of the fashion world hollow.

We at classystreet.com salute the spirit of our senior women who recognized the worth and the value of organic clothes and organic food and an organic lifestyle and had the gumption to create a trend in fashion that is ageless, timeless and immortal.