Designed For Slim Waists And Fat Wallets

Front row passes for the Bangalore Fashion Week 2010! The designer was an acquaintance, kind enough to share two passes for the event. Now I am no fashion aficionado, yet, simply being a woman, a ticket to the glamour world was pure luck knocking at the doors.

Today I read in the papers that there is a mad scuttle to get front row passes for the Fashion Week. I would be a fool, if I were to decline the offer a year ago. Shockingly in Delhi socialites are hiring image consultants to procure invites for coveted shows. The image consultants charge up to a lakh for ensuring the right visibility for the social butterflies. Perhaps it’s Delhi and every second person is a Page 3 socialite, that’s why.

Bangalore has its own beautiful paradox. It is a metro with all the luxuries of a small town, where common man can get tickets for big events, unlike Delhi where power honchos and celebrities are nauseatingly over-spilling.
“What is there to see in a fashion show?” the husband let the fizz out. ‘Those dresses are outrageous.”

Now who can explain that I am not going there for the dress designs. Well, I wish to see the show for the sheer experience of it. Simple!
Not the time to argue. Time to utilize all the persuasive skills at my disposal. “It will be a nice evening out We haven’t seen ‘The Oterra’ and models. The place will be swarming with pretty models.”
Punch!
Lest he is getting old, he cannot refuse.
“Let’s see if I am back early from work.”


If you are a woman you will appreciate this one. The moment we have an invitation on hand, the delicious agony is ‘what to wear’. Yet in hindsight, the agony was a waste of time. With women at the venue in nothing less than two carats and exotic labels, even a sack on me would have gone unnoticed. Funnily enough some women were deliberately holding their LVs against the chest claiming, ‘I have arrived.’ Yes, I was in the exotic land of ‘buy and tell’.


People milled in the room as seats filled. The rush and murmur of voices died suddenly and there was darkness before the music started thumping. From dense smoke, sashayed a model. A battery of shutterbugs went crazy. Forget the dress, there was hardly any. So what was there? The accessory de jure was oodles of attitude. Dripping. The secret is to revel in the freedom of being a woman, swing the hips, and toss the mane but never smile. A smile perhaps denigrates the value of the dress.

The husband being his candid self couldn’t control, ‘Where’s the dress? She’s tied two handkerchiefs?” As I shh-ed him, the lady sitting next to us gave an icy look.
Honest. I wasn’t ogling. I just happened to sight it. Purely unintentional! After all models are Gods perfect creations. Aren’t they? Wasn’t it meant for lesser mortals? Yes, Cellulite. It was visible on some slimmest legs.

Perhaps the show lacked high profile models and thus the imperfection. Cellulite on an international model can snatch the star power instantly. Scrutiny comes with the nature of business and imperfections are not acceptable. Unfortunate but true.

The designs displayed are sometimes path breaking in shades, silhouettes and cuts, but are meant exclusively for very slim waists and very fat wallets.


Would fashion be fashion unless lots of people were following it? Does fashion originate from such shows and becomes more emphatic and ubiquitous? Perhaps color, silhouettes and drape trends emerge. Did jeans become a jegging or a legging courtesy fashion shows? Isn’t Bollywood responsible for fashion trends? Perhaps both. I do not know.

However I know that comfort level and pricing has to be in concurrence for a trend to become fashion on the street. Yet fashion on the street is entirely different than what is exhibited in fashion shows. I am now scratching my head. It is so confusing.