This article argues that the identity of the ‘new’ Indian woman in the rapidly altering cultural and social imaginary of India is constructed, shaped and redefined in the everyday experiences of women as they both contest and submit to the images and constructs that impinge on their senses, emotions, and material and social conditions. In this context, the article examines samples of advertisements, fashion photography and selected textual material from the Indian women’s magazine Femina to understand how body images serve to construct embodiment and womanhood through the medium of visual representation and textual discourse. The focus in the magazine is on the desirability of woman’s body, not only as a glamorous, well-groomed product, but also as a commercialised product for consumption in an international marketplace, thus affirming that India has arrived in the world of beauty and glamour, and legitimising the recolonisation of Indian woman’s embodiment in the global economy.
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