Style your fame

Though there are other such online fashion communities like lookbook.com and chictopia.com,StylePile is being touted as India’s first such venture. Officially started in May,2010 by Delhi-based couple Noopur and Anant Chaudhary,the website has garnered a lot of curiosity over these months. “I am obsessed with fashion and Anant is a technology freak so this website seemed like a great idea. We expected two kinds of people to log in — the expressers and the explorers,” says Noopur,who is currently in USA.

So far that’s exactly what has happened. The website has over 7,500 members. With military jackets,high-waisted shorts,flowy floral dresses,studded shoes and neon nail colours in vogue on the site,it is gaining quite a fan following on social networking websites. While some members are fashion bloggers,budding designers and stylists,others are just fashion enthusiasts and express their passion through this website. “I want to be a designer and very soon I will be posting pictures of my creations on my blog so that people can order clothes through this site,” says 19-year-old Delhi student Yanam Wahge. She takes pride in the fact that she won StylePile’s style icon contest in August and Short & Sweet contest in the following month. Both the wins got her gift vouchers from Lady Bug.

“The website features regular people like you and me. As an insider,I feel that Bollywood style is aspirational,not realistic. Sites like these make us aware of the amazing street style of people around us,” says 24-year-old freelance stylist,Nidhi Jacob. She adds that even though internationally known fashion communities like Lookbook are more popular,their members are too widely scattered across the world to be able to really relate to one another.

Members have found other uses for the website too. Mumbai-based duo Jasleen Kaur and Sonu Bohra of the fashion brand Jsos find the site useful for popularising their brand. “Because we can post our blog on StylePile,a number of people check it out and we get more hits. We also post a number of pictures of the accessories we have designed for our brand,” explains Bohra,who believes that the site is great for like-minded fashionistas to network.

However,there are some drawbacks to the site as well. While the lack of representation of men’s fashion is glaring,with the popularity of the website,privacy issues are likely to become a major concern in the near future. Unlike Orkut and Facebook,which offer a lot of privacy solutions,on StylePile,everyone’s profile and pictures are accessible,making them open to piracy and abuse. “Our pictures can be easily misused and I have even seen some fake profiles on the site. Privacy is a concern,” says Wahge.