ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the negotiation of political and social issues in Indian fashion magazines. It looks at the representation of India’s political climate, issues of female empowerment, appropriateness and standard Indian femininity as portrayed in three magazines: Vogue India, Elle India and Verve. The emergence of the fashion magazine in India is a by-product of the economic liberalization of the late 1990s–early 2010s that opened the country’s economy to foreign investment and strengthened its middle classes, making personal success and pleasurable consumption more accessible. This economic liberalization, however, was concomitant with the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, meaning that conservative values and views on gendered appropriateness have grown to co-exist with economic and cultural globalization in complex ways. This chapter demonstrates this complexity by revealing how fashion magazines negotiate between desi (Indian) clothing styles and international fashion trends, far-right Hindu ideals of femininity and global ideas of female empowerment, divisive nationalist politics and global shifts towards inclusivity. In doing so, it suggests that Indian fashion magazines are not only actively involved in assessing the socio-political climate in India, but also serve as sites for the expression of political views.
