Wherever there are Indians, there will be a party to celebrate the festival of lights. This post is about the celebration of Diwali in Fairbanks Alaska and features my favorite looks.
- Indian Students Invite Fairbanksans to Celebrate Diwali
- The Indian Community Cooks the Food
- The Fashion at the Festival of Lights
- What I Wore at Diwali in Fairbanks Alaska
- Street Chic Outfits at Diwali in Fairbanks
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 mouth.
The Indian Community Cooks 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 at the Festival of Lights

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. More on what is best to wear at a Diwali party.

What I Wore at Diwali in Fairbanks Alaska
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. However, now I am always stressed out what to wear at Diwali.
I wore the dress-over-pants outfit with hand-painted embellishment 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.

Street Chic Outfits at Diwali in Fairbanks
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 street style.


More on how to have street style in the guide at the link.
You can find posts with
- Chinese ethnic clothes outfit ideas,
- variety of different ethnic outfits from all over the World, and
- a guide on how to style ethnic clothes at the links.
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Photos: N. Mölders, G. Kramm
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