Model Tanushree flaunts outfits from Kiran?s new collection

If your concern was paternal, the flapper was a problem. Otherwise, she was a pleasure... The flapper girl (a 1920s term for a ?young, lively, unconventional woman?) didn?t suggest matrimony and motherhood. Their shingled hair was peroxided or henna-ed, their eyebrows were plucked and pencilled, their eyelids were beaded, their cheeks and lips were piquantly rouged. Except for their silver-fox or mink jackets, the sum of what they wore could almost have been packed into their handbags. Smart leather-goods shops were advertising the novelty of an ?overnight case?. It seemed a primary requisite for women bent on ?leading their own lives?.

That was Lloyd Morris? impression of the 1920s flapper girl who stormed through the decade immortalising the flapper dress.

Epitomising so much of the spirit of today. She breathes again, inspiring my latest collection with a sensibility that almost feels like 1920s flapper girl-meets-Indian diva.

We call it the Lawless Decade, but it has been known by many names. It was F. Scott Fitzgerald?s Jazz Age. Westbrook Pegler called it the Era of Wonderful Nonsense. Frederick Lewis Allen, the period?s most able observer, talked of the New Era and the New Freedom. Some put it down as the Roaring Twenties. A time when all the old playing rules went out of the book. And to the bluenoses, may they rest in peace, it was the Dry Decade. There was nothing dry about the Twenties. This line is a toast to the free spirit of that decade.

I seem to have gone back to the beginning. Today, we can again see low-slung waists, slender lean silhouettes, a spirit of defiance that dominated that era in a different kind of understated seduction. And yet fashion has changed. Fashion?s only constant is that it changes. It?s almost as if as soon as something has to be ?in fashion? no sooner is it ?out of fashion? again.

It may seem as if we make these changes on a whim, but in reality, a line only catches on if it captures the spirit of the age.

And so this collection is a mix of bohemia and bourgeoisie, glamour, chic and hard work. Feeling like a woman while living like a man. The palette is monochromatic ? white, black and all shades of blood. The hemlines and necklines are asymmetric. Hair a boyish crop. Silhouettes ? lean long jackets, backless halter dresses, slim long skirts, ponchos with uneven hemlines.

Accessories include elegant cigarette holders, compact cases, beaded hip-level belts and vanity bags.