Indian students invite Fairbanksans to celebrate Diwali
Every year around Diwali, the Indian student club of the University Alaska Fairbanks organizes a Diwali dinner party at the Wood Center. The tickets are often sold out more than a months before. There is no advertising. It is all word of month.
The food
The students spent the entire day cooking Indian dishes. It is a big logistic thing to do all the shopping, cooking, and keeping the food warm for serving. They also prepared the ballroom to look festive and put on a show that educates about India.
Each year, I am looking forward to this event. Of course, I love the Indian food. In a town, where you only can get Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Korean, Greek and American food, another taste is always more than welcome.
The fashion
However, the thing I love the most is the fashion. The wives of the Indian professors, the female Indian professors, their daughters and the female Indian students are real down-to-the-bone fashionistas when it comes to Indian clothes. I have never seen one of them wearing the same sari or other Indian outfit twice!
From the Bollywood movie scenes that the students showed one could see that these women are on top of things wearing this season’s Indian must-haves. I love the bright and bold colors of the outfits and the attention to details like embroidery, color combinations, beading and matching colors when wearing costume jewelry.
What I wore at Diwali
One year I dared to “recycle” a sari I had worn five years before and got caught. Thus, I won’t make this mistake twice. This year I wore the burgundy (this seasons trend color!) dress over pants outfit with hand-painted embellishment shown in the first tow photos of this post. I paired it with a pair of brand new dancing shoes. I added the red spot on my face with nail polish so it would stay on for the night.
Diwali entertainment
There were various groups performing Indian dances, playing Indian music or singing traditional or modern Indian songs.
Other outfits
Of course, there were a lot of locals. Most of them wore Fairbanks formal. However, some took the opportunity to adapt to the situation with their own way of Fairbanks streetstyle.
Are there heritage celebrations in the town where you live? Do you like to attend them? Is it hard to get tickets? Do you try to wear the ethnic clothing when attending? I am curious. Send me an email.
If you like the outfits why not sharing them with your friends by tweeting them to have a look at these awesome Indian outfits.
You can find posts with Chinese ethnic clothes, and a variety of different ethnic outfits at these links. Are you interested in how to style ethnic clothes?
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Photos: N. Mölders, G. Kramm
© 2013-2018 Nicole Mölders | All rights reserved
