Street view: fluid fashion in India

For well over a decade, Manou (@wearaboutblog on Instagram) has used his extensive travels to shape his views as a photographer and blogger. He has documented Indian street fashion and has shared cultural commentary from across the country. “Men at fashion weeks were always more liberal with their clothes. Outside of fashion weeks, clothing informed by tradition, culture, comfort and utility has always been fluid. Just the context and the way we are looking at the entire thing seems to have changed,” he says.

He agrees that popular culture definitely plays a role in informing people’s choices. “With time, as more people consume a variety of pop culture via Instagram, Netflix and YouTube, filtered through the algorithms and their own personalised curiosities, there may be a wider acceptance for things such as fashion,” adds this photographer, who has spent the last year at Dharmashala, dabbling in music production. His original tracks are part of ad and fashion campaigns for brands like Fabindia. Sharing with us photos taken over the last five years, he says one can now easily find instances of men being comfortable in fluid fashion across the country, “wherever the internet reaches”.