Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at how appearance is part of ‘personality development’ and in refashioning new forms of personhood in globalised Delhi. I contend that the choice of a particular fashion is an indicator of the social and the political, and is mediated by the aesthetics of caste and class.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at how clothes and appearance are part of ‘personality development’ and in refashioning new forms of personhood in globalised Delhi. The new economic policies of 1991 in India led to the emergence of a consumption-driven economy, the new middle class and a booming service industry, producing new aspirations and sensibilities. Delhi’s new ‘world-class’ spaces of employment, pleasure and consumption in the form of new cultures of work, shopping malls, gourmet restaurants and religio-touristic sites demand new modes of belonging. Thus, this has led to many sections of the youth and upper-middle-class women desiring to curate an image or an aesthetic fit to demonstrate their belonging to the new sites of the ‘global’. To cater to the demands of achieving an aesthetic fit, grooming schools have become a popular sight/site in Delhi. By focussing on lessons in appearance and attire, I examine how fashion is systematically and pedagogically broken down to curate an appropriate aesthetic fit. Fashion brings with it a sense of access and acceptance, while simultaneously being a cause of judgment and anxiety. I examine the choices of my interlocutors and the advice of the grooming instructors to dissect what constitutes fashionable and unfashionable in the urban milieu. I contend that the choice of a particular fashion is an indicator of the social and the political and in this case, it is mediated by the aesthetics of caste and class.