finding fashion inspiration during the darker gloomy days of fall and winter may be tough and yet, i seem to find inspiration in exactly those dark gloomy hidden corners. i see beauty and light in dark and complicated gray matter. therefore, it's no surprise that when i began creating my latest fashion inspiration, i turned to "film noir" - a genre very near and dear to my heart. this look speaks of the dichotomy between romance and rock, the duality of love - innocent and sweet versus complicated adult love. it also celebrates powerful women who are not afraid to sport lace with biker style jackets or trench coats dispelling an aura of mystery wherever they go.  i hope you enjoy my piece called "dark love".  items in the look are listed below.

DARK LOVE

Items in this set: 
Shop at Anna Dress, 349 GBP
Gilles Dufour For Browns jacket, 395 GBP
Brownsfashion.com shoes, 350 GBP
Coach bag, $348
Tolani scarf, $99
Topshop.com tights, 12 GBP
Valentino Rock and Rose, perfume, $60

just like other bengalis, i've long been a chai snob.  you know the chai tea latte from starbucks?  well, i wouldn't dare take a sip of that!  if you're a total chai connoisseur like me then, you'd probably agree.  chai tea (let's look past the redundancy for now) latte is kid stuff compared to the regal teas of assam and darjeeling.  ever since i was little, we only drank the "good stuff" at home.  the special blends that passed the bengali taste tests at my home included "lopchu" tea,  orange pekoe, green pekoe, makaibari, other darjeeling blends from dolly's tea house in kolkata, and other such "refined" teas.  we usually had hordes of tea saved from each of our visits to kolkata and at first even when our visits to kolkata were not as often, special guests always meant bringing out the special tea at our house.  of course, the special events and causes for celebration became more frequent as we grew up and my sister and i devised new ways to get our hands on the savored little packets filled with aromatic teas - it's raining out, let's bring out the special tea today or i got an a on my exam, surely that's cause for celebration!  in this way, our tea snobbery was further encouraged as the special events at my house became more and more frequent and we put aside the earl greys and liptons to opt only for darjeeling and assam teas.

however, i was pleasantly surprised by a tea which my sister presented me with recently.  i tried to look past the elegant and beautiful packaging (which i'm a complete sucker for) and judge only the contents in the bin.  the tea comes in many different flavors and the one she got me was called "kashmir tchai".  i liked that the tea had an authentic taste and reminded me of home. 

the kusmi tea's history started in 1867 in st. petersburg and then, located to paris in 1917. it's a wonderful gift to order for friends and family especially around the holidays and i am really looking forward to trying out some of these flavors:  darjeeling makaibari, darjeeling n37, and ceylon op. 

:: i've changed the layout and style of my blog partly because i needed some inspiration and partly because i was really bored with the old one. so, i decided to pick a new layout and style in the hopes that it will give me the much-needed jolt i needed to re-enter the blogging world. i wanted to keep it modern, clean, and simple. i also felt like my blog was light years behind the social networking hoopla so i've added some cute little icons. feel free to click around, explore, and link to your preferred medium of social networking! any other ideas you have on how to make this blog more aligned with web 2.0 features will be greatly appreciated. i'm still deciding between adding flash, new images, new fonts, and new capabilities. i mean at the end of the day, it's content that matters the most. where do you draw the line between trying to drive visitors to your blog and meaningful content? do you really have to choose one? i want to eat my cake too so any ideas on how to accomplish this seemingly impossible balance will be appreciated!

i have to admit that i've missed blogging. there's nothing as liberating as writing down your thoughts and knowing that you'll be able to share them with people by simply clicking publish. it's pretty exhilarating! i think i have taken it for granted all these years until i finally lacked the time to blog and then, i actually started to miss it. you mean nobody to read about the absolutely unbelievable day i just had? nobody to share with the cute notepads i just found which were such a bargain? noone to comment on the utter and sheer stupidity i encountered today? that's when i really started missing you guys! i even tried convincing myself that it's okay because noone (other than five other blogging friends) actually read this blog so the "nobody" count wouldn't really go up if i actually posted. then, a miracle happened! i logged in to see how many visitors i had one day and was quite taken back by the number. i still brushed it off as a one-time event, a fluke - they meant to visit the other "tania mukherji" and accidentally entered a dash in the middle ending up at my blog. however, it was the same the next day and even a month later, i was still getting visitors despite not having written a word. other than boosting my self-esteem it also served as the jolt i needed to get back on!

so here i am world and thank you for being so patient with me! you may notice a change in type of posts, subjects, and even voice because that's what happens when you grow up, you learn, you change and believe me when i say this - i've definitely grown a lot as a person in the last year! so here's to a whole new blog to show off a whole new me!