Iggy Azalea's Bollywood & Eastern Influenced video

Iggy Azalea, an Australian singer/rapper released a new video for her single 'Bounce', which I though was interesting, less because of the song, and more because of her costumes. A lot of viewers have stated that they found this a little insulting, and slightly disrespectful because Iggy Azalea's meant to be in a temple and is dancing, but I think she meant to show the influence that India left on her, and to show it's positive side.

The costumes were apparently put together and styled by Alejandra Hernandez - I love that Parveen Bibi was one inspiration for the looks, and the fact that a lot of the jewellery and costumes came from India.

First up is this bridal outfit that Iggy is wearing in this video, which has the full jewellery set, matta-pathi and all with red lips and pretty henna. While we don't see a lot of blonde-haired brides in real life, it's easy to see the appeal to non-Asians. I think it is easy to look washed out in such a vivid red, but I think the rapper pulls it off her, and I really liked her make-up which looked immaculate and not too much.

I also noticed a lot of gold outfits and gota-style work on some of her costumes, which I liked because it showed a mixing of trends in Asian fashion, as well as a throw-back to the 60s and 70s; Paired with the singer's almost hippie hair and make-up look, this looks quite pretty.

I also liked the use of white jasmine flowers in her hair(although it's not traditionally worn this way!), and i think again, it suits the singer's colouring and the fact that she has set it off with simple, block colours.

 

I was less keen on some of the other outfits, like this full gold body-suit. While I'm sure it suits the singer's rapper status, I thought it looked a bit OTT, not to mention looked a bit hot to wear!

All in all, while some argued that this might be a little patronising to Indian and Desi culture, I don't think this is the singer's intention, while I agree that rap might not be the first thing which comes to mind when you think of Bollywood, it's interesting to see the singer's take. There has always been controversy over non-Asians in the Bollywood and Asian fashion scene (such as the TOWIE girls on the Asian Woman magazine, Selena Gomez's bindi controversy, or even Madonna's use of henna in her Frozen video!) but I think that just as there are people against it, there are also supporters of non-Asian women following trends.

Personally, I'm still on the fence on this one, I think Iggy Azalea looked great in this video, but I also think there's a few silly moments in it which could be done without!

All images are from Iggy Azalea's Bounce video