Bella Hadid appears in a one-piece Chanel swimsuit under high-waisted boyfriend jeans. Other accessories: black sneakers, a black patent-leather waistbag and sunglasses dangling from her neck while she is sighted in NYC.

Almost at the same time, many, many bare midriffs are spotted at the Coachella music and arts festival. And Paris gears up for spring, with tender fuchsia jackets draped on slender frames or cropped floral tops leading to wide-legged jeans.

Street fashion is big now. Even as the big events happen at the big cities, the Milan, Paris, London, New York fashion weeks, fashion magazines and websites devote a lot of their space to what’s going on in the streets: the girl in the snakeskin boots or the one with roses stitched on her denim jacket.

Identity is the key-word to street style fashion. It is about individual expression, not so much a rebellion as a movement away from standardisation by high-end brands, by the ramp, by advertising. It may not be deeply aligned with a political movement either, as was hippie fashion. But it is about the right to wear what one pleases.
 

That may not be a superficial thing.

Street fashion calls for freedom and is liberating itself.

Online fashion bloggers are influencing street fashion significantly. Japan, as well as other Asian and African countries, are emerging as key centres of street fashion along with the big Western cities. But the Asian and African countries do not have time-honoured fashion houses that have dominated world fashion to prop them up.

In these countries the trends are not being set by fashion labels or designers, but by young girls who are not afraid to play with their looks and put their stuff online. India, too, is not far behind.

Here the models experiment with jeans and solid colours from GAS, an Italian brand that just launched a store at South City Mall. The idea was to blend class with casual chic.

Models: Monisha and Felicity  l  Hair and make-up: Rebecca Polizzi  l  Concept and direction: Nick Rampal  l  Photographs: Paul David Martin  l  Courtesy: GAS store, South City Mall