Recently SikhNet conducted an interview with the founders of Turban-Esque.com
“We spent so many nights in my basement trying to get the logo, or the webpage looking exactly how we imagined it, obsessing over every detail.” Jaskirat Chahal and Jaskaran Chauhan started the fashion blog Turbanesque over the summer as a platform for individuals in Vancouver to showcase the same pride they felt about their turbans.
How did Turbanesque begin?
[Jaskaran]: Well both of us are business students and we were always talking about starting some kind of project or business that we could build. Something that we were genuinely interested in and would enjoy spending our time and effort growing.
[Jaskirat]: It was a culmination of two passions for both of us. We love this business part of starting something new and at the same time we love the fashion aspect. We saw other people in our community like Jus Reign and Jagmeet Singh in Toronto, and Singh Street Style in the UK doing such amazing things but we never saw anything happening in Vancouver. So, that also motivated us because we wanted to be a part of bringing the change we wanted to see in our community here in Vancouver.
Walk us through the process of getting the blog up and running?
[Jaskaran]: After we decided we wanted to do a fashion blog, we had to really think conceptually what the purpose or the mission behind this blog was. We had to think about why we were doing this and how it would all fit together. Once we figured that out, we decided on a name, created the page, and designed it all. But, the more difficult part was actually pitching this to the first 8 people we wanted to feature and seeing what kind of response we would get.
[Jaskirat]: We decided early on that we didn’t want this to be a blog that just featured the two of us, actually if you look through it you won’t see a post of Jaskaran yet because we haven’t gotten around to it. This is a community-based blog that relies on people around us being comfortable with the concept and reaching out to us to showcase their styles.
So how do you get featured on Turbanesque?
[Jaskaran]: We have two pretty basic requirements. One being that you wear a turban, which to us is a expression of your identity. The other being that you have a unique sense of style that showcases to the world your inner self. Both of us have different tastes in terms of fashion and style so we try to look at the outfits we receive from as many perspectives as we can.
[Jaskirat]: It really comes back to our motto; Fashion Admiration, Crown Appreciation. That statement encompasses what we are doing. It’s about people that can relate to this, people that adorn a crown, and know the feeling of putting on a turban everyday. And also people that enjoy fashion and use it to express themselves. We are seeing this more in mainstream media, where men with turbans are being showcased to the public.
What do you think of this?
[Jaskaran]: It’s always great to see the media and people appreciating one another for being different. We’ve seen turbaned men featured in national ads like Gap, Adidas, and Samsung. Its great, but we have yet to see a turbaned women be showcased in the mainstream media. Other than stylewithkaur in Australia, who is doing an amazing job, we haven’t really seen that.”
[Jaskirat]: Having equal representation of both men and women was a crucial point that we wanted to address with this blog. We wanted our sisters to show that they are proud of their turban as males, and not afraid to express it.
What has been the most rewarding part or memorable moment so far with Turbanesque?
[Jaskirat]: The most rewarding part has definitely been all of the supportive emails and responses we have gotten from people all over the world. One email in particular was from a woman who tied a turban. And she was letting us know how she loved the website, especially because of the equal representation we upheld. It was great to hear some positive feedback and know that we’re doing something right. Our whole mindset has been that if even one person feels more proud or comfortable with their turban and identity after seeing our blog, we’ve done our job.
[Jaskaran]: The shoot we did with the Ferrari was a lot of fun. Overall most of our shoots are pretty memorable. You take a group of strangers and put them together to do a photo shoot, and you’re bound to have some goofy moments, and a fun time.
Where do you see Turbanesque in the future?
[Jaskaran]: One of the things we are incorporating very soon is a small written portion under each persons photoset. They would provide a little insight to who the person is and their personality. We want the viewer to be more engaged with the people being featured and find aspects to relate to.
[Jaskirat]: In the future, I would see us having a much more diverse representation. So far we’ve done a great job of showcasing many different people, but we all are recognized as Sikhs. Since this blog is not exclusive to just Sikhs, we’re trying to focus on incorporating people of different cultures and religions that can relate to the idea of adorning a crown on their heads like us.
