Having portrayed characters from the 1960s and 1970s in projects like ‘Bambai Meri Jaan’ and ‘Matka King’, actress Kritika Kamra feels fashion from that era felt more personal and culturally distinctive compared to today’s ever-burgeoning social media-driven trends.With the 1906s-1970s embracing repetition and re-styling, does the continuity make fashion feel more personal compared to today’s constant novelty?Kritika told IANS: “When I look at the fashion, the style of that era, it definitely feels more personal. You see this need for constant novelty right now because of social media. Trends change really quickly.”The actress added that “they obviously didn’t change like this back then. That’s why you have decades in fashion. The 60s were a few trends, a few elements, then the 70s and 80s.”She said each decade is defined like that.“When we studied fashion history in fashion school, it was always defined by decades. But now trends change really quickly, and also because of social media, everybody’s kind of seeing the same references, the same trends all over the world. So it doesn’t feel as personal. It feels a bit more homogenized.”Reflecting on her research for her latest project, ‘Matka King’, Kritika talked about how fashion in different parts of the world once carried unique interpretations shaped by culture, individuality, and regional identity.“But when you look at the pictures or any films of the 60s, 70s, there were, of course, these overarching trends that everybody was kind of following. But each person had their own interpretation. And when you see pictures of the West versus India, there’s also a lot of cultural difference.”Kritika added: “Some things that we borrowed from there, some things that we had our own. The way we wore those tight salwar kameezes or sarees in a particular way, that was really unique to our culture on this side of the world. So you see a lot of inspiration and influences of cultures mixing into each other.”“And that’s why the fashion of New York feels different from the fashion of South Bombay in the 70s. It was really interesting to do a deep dive into this while researching for Madka King. I have always dressed for myself,” Kritika concluded.
