Kim Kardashian and her squad of sisters are not only one of the most popular families today, but also an empire. They are influential enough to have broken the Internet several times over with Kim Kardashian’s derriere on Paper magazine, Kylie Jenner’s plumped lips, and even Khloe Kardashian’s weight loss. They don’t show any sign of slowing down their trendsetting ways, with Kim recently revealing that she uses gaffer tape on her breasts to achieve the perfect cleavage — and the picture even inspiring a number of ‘challenges’. What can our city’s fashion forward tell us about their trysts with Kardashian-Jenner phenomenons?
Revathi Rajkumar, a banker in the city, is obsessed with everything Kardashian — to the point where she even has to use products the sisters endorse! “I follow them on literally every social media forum, so I’m updated on their posts and antics. I try desperately to search all over the city for the beauty products they use, and have even gone to the extent of importing them. I was so taken with Kendall Jenner’s most-liked Instagram post (the heart-shaped hair snap) that I replicated it in my bedroom! It took all of a few minutes... and well, the perfect selfie,” she grins.
Surya Ganapathy, a model, heard about Kim’s secret to a perfect cleavage but hasn’t seen any influence in Chennai…yet. “I wear in-built pads in my dresses and I know of people who choose to wear nothing when wearing plunging necklines. Of course, the taping will soon become a fad because we do ape the west in some ways. To each her own,” she remarks. Kylie Jenner’s sudden full pout became a rage on social media with people trying to ape her by using suction cups and even vacuum cleaners to achieve plumped-up lips. Case in point, Roja Patnaik, an entrepreneur and YouTube vlogger, who posted a video (on her channel Alongwithrose) taking on the #KylieJennerLipChallenge.
I’ve always followed the Kardashians and their show, and I saw a lot of Viners taking the challenge. So I thought, why not? I took a cylindrical bottle cap and sucked all the air out of it. After a minute, I took off the cap and I had swollen lips like Kylie,” says Roja. She goes on to tell us of the aftermath, “It was painful and left marks around my mouth for a couple of weeks. The fact that I made another video, ‘Don’t try the Kylie lip challenge’, answers your questions.” It surely does.
Make-up artist Aakriti Sachdev believes that Kim and her posse have a huge influence on the world of beauty, even in Chennai. “I’ve had people in my workshops ask me to teach them contouring, the Kim Kardashian way. Of course, highlighting and contouring have been around forever, but the Kardashians have taken it to another level, and their techniques are completely different. People even ask for Kardashian brows!” she laughs. She even has an upcoming tutorial to get a fuller pout a la Kylie through make-up tricks like overdrawing the lips and highlighting. Looks like Kardashian fever is here to stay!
