Archive for the 'Fashion' Category

A transgender beauty contest

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on February 20, 2010
in Fashion and Society
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Parizaad Khan in Mint-Lounge:

Getting ready to go on stage. Image: Mint

Ritu is a Mumbai girl brought up in Goregaon and Mira Road. She was born a man but as an adolescent she realized that being in a man’s body did not make her one. Luckily for Ritu, her south Indian parents were supportive and understanding—they didn’t tell her not to dress like a woman and her mother often helps her pick out which sari to wear.

Ritu, who loves dancing, became a bar dancer and was one till the ban on dancers in 2005. Recently, she got the chance she had been waiting for—to walk the ramp.

Indian Super Queen, a transgender beauty pageant, was meant to be a way for hijras (eunuchs) to take pride in themselves and show their unity. At first, it smelt like a revolution. For people who had been feared and marginalized for decades, what better way to assert their humanity than by having an in-your-face celebration of their uniqueness? More:

The monk who makes a living out of fashion

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on February 16, 2010
in Design, Faith and Fashion
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Sarah Jacob in The Economic Times:

Swami Pranavananda Brahmendra Avadhuta is not exactly a name that you would expect on the attendance rolls of a fashion trade show. But then swamiji—as he is known—hates predictable patterns in life as much as in his fabrics.

Christian Fabre became Swami Pranavananda after the ups and downs of his business life landed him in the lap of vedanta. But instead of withdrawing to himself, the French man decided to apply the new wisdom of share-and-care in his business, spotting the potential of organised retail in India as early as 2006.

Today, his Christian Fabre Textiles Pvt Ltd caters to around 20 global brands, including Lee Cooper to Oxbow, and stands out in India’s fabric firmament with 25-30% annual growth. The Chennai-based garment buying house acts as a facilitator between these brands and local manufacturers, with a finger across the value chain, from design to manufacturing. More:

Kabul makeover

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on February 11, 2010
in Af-Pak, Afghanistan, Fashion, Society, Terrorism and Women
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Reality-TV shows like Afghan Model are rewiring Afghan culture—for better and for worse. Kim Barker in The Atlantic:

Anita Khalwat wears heavy makeup, fake eyelashes, and a green spangly head scarf, loose dress, and pants fit for an Afghan wedding. But she’s no bride. She’s a warrior in heels and metallic nail polish, preparing to appear on Afghan Model, a new TV show that aims to find the top fashion star in a war-torn nation where neither of the two main languages has a word for “model,” and where threats by the TV-hating, women-loathing Taliban have turned an appearance before the cameras on a rickety, rainbow-lit white stage into a political statement.

“Hide your hair today,” one judge, Hozair Amiri, tells Khalwat before a recent taping. “Please.”

Khalwat, her green head scarf showing off a good part of her highlighted brown hair, looks at Amiri almost fiercely. With less than perfectly white teeth, a generous nose, an average body, and a hip thrust more fitting for a hockey rink than for a runway, the 23-year-old Khalwat would never make the tryouts for America’s Next Top Model, the Tyra Banks vehicle that Afghan Model tries to emulate. More:

Take a bow, Sonia Dara

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on February 11, 2010
in Fashion, People and Women
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A screenshot of the Sports Illustrated Web site. Sonia Dara was photographed by Riccardo Tinelli in Rajasthan.

She’s 5′11″, has dark brown hair, brown eyes, measures 32″-24″-34.5″ and wears a US size 2. The daughter of Indian immigrant parents, Sonia Dara was discovered at an actors and models talent convention. She’s been seen at Cosmo Girl, Vogue India and Seventeen. Umm, did we say she’s also a sophomore at Harvard College?

Sonia sizzles in her first appearance in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (photographed by Riccardo Tinelli in Rajasthan). For more photographs and a short video, click here

And below, from May 2009 edition of The Harvard Crimson:

Likewise, Dara, who is represented by Elite Model Management in New York City, balances a blossoming modeling career with the demands of school. According to her mother, Poornima Dara, good grades were a prerequisite for her daughter to model in high school.

“We’re the first set of South Asian parents to encourage their child to do modeling,” Poornima Dara said. “We encouraged her because she showed us that she can multitask, model and get a 4.0 GPA. If she weren’t able to multitask, we wouldn’t have encouraged her.”

Dara said her parents have always been supportive of her aspirations, and her mother moved with her to New York City the summer before her senior year in high school to support her aspirations.

“The biggest kicker is that it’s kind of an unorthodox career for an Indian,” Dara said, adding that many of her acquaintances back home wondered if she went into modeling because she was doing poorly in school.

In actuality, Dara says excelled at school, studying for her Advanced Placement tests while modeling with Elite. “They’d call me ‘the AP kid’ because I was the only one taking AP’s and a lot of the other girls got their GED’s,” she said of her time in New York. More:

In India, designer hairstyling makes the cut

Published
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on February 7, 2010
in Fashion and India
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Carla Power in Time:

It’s like a fish market,” says Jawed Habib, fondly surveying the Sunday-afternoon hubbub of his south New Delhi hair salon, one of 12 he runs in the Indian capital alone. Heaving with stylists, JAWED HABIB PRO TEAM emblazoned on their bold red-and-black shirts, the salon recalls less the chaos of a fish market than the disciplined efficiency of a well-run kitchen. His golden quiff defying gravity, the 46-year-old Habib serves as both head chef and maître d’, helping a matron into her chair, judging the angle of a junior stylist’s cut, checking the helmet of sludgy green henna drying on an elderly gentleman’s hair and moustache.

Habib’s salons aren’t India’s poshest, but that’s not the point. Over the past decade, the New Delhi native has brought branded hairstyling to a country where millions still get their hair trimmed by mummy-ji in the bathroom, or by barbers whose salons consist of a tree trunk with a mirror tacked onto it. Habib has helped convince Middle India that hair isn’t just something that grows on your head but rather a market waiting to be primped and tugged at. “People used to think hair care was a low-grade profession, with no future,” he says. “I showed them that it’s both a science and a business.” More:

So what if you aren’t Shah Rukh, you can still be an ass

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on February 4, 2010
in Fashion, India and Society
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In Outlook, Shefalee Vasudev on fair skin fetish:

Why do Bollywood stars, who claim to be global-local ambassadors of new India, agree to become brand ambassadors of products without being absolutely sure they are hundred per cent safe? Katrina Kaif, who is naturally fair, sells Olay’s Natural White. Preity Zinta, another fair lady, was not so long back the face of Fem’s Herbal Bleach. “It is not a bleach, it is a breakthrough,” said the ad. Wow! Sonam Kapoor sells L’Oreal’s White Perfect and Deepika Padukone sells Neutrogena’s Fine Fairness range. John Abraham dimples and offers you a shade card as he tries to convince you to buy Garnier’s Men’s fairness cream.

What’s especially worrying is that terms like ayurveda, natural, herbal, and adjectives like long-lasting, healthy, nourishing and enriching are used in conjunction with fairness products. (‘Herbal bleach’ sounds like such a slap to ayurveda!) More:

The Afghan leader’s hat

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on January 27, 2010
in Af-Pak, Afghanistan, Culture, Design, Fashion, Leaders and Politics
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From the New York Times:

Known as a karakul hat, and made of the pelt of fetal or newborn lambs of the karakul breed of sheep, traditionally it was something worn by Tajiks and Uzbeks from northern Afghanistan. When Mr. Karzai, a Pashtun from the turban-wearing south, took office in 2002, the karakul hat was part of his attempt to devise a wardrobe that was Afghan rather than ethnic or regional.

It was a move widely praised at the time, in Afghanistan and abroad. The American designer Tom Ford called the Afghan president “the chicest man on the planet.” Afghans looking for national symbols after decades of ethnic strife inspired a brisk trade in the hats, made of lambskins from Mazar-i-Sharif in the north and fashioned by Kabul’s hatters, whose shops lined both sides of Shah-e-do Shamshera Wali Road.

Now, a tainted presidential election later, and with efforts to make a truly multiethnic government foundering, the sheen is off the shimmery fur headwear.

Young men no longer wear it; Mr. Karzai’s opponent in the aborted election runoff, Abdullah Abdullah, a northerner, preferred a hatless suit-and-tie ensemble. All but 12 of the hatters shops have closed on Shamshera Road, also famous for its shrine covered in pigeons. Those remaining say they are lucky to sell a hat a day. More:

Yoga for foodies

Published
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on January 27, 2010
in Fashion, Food, Health and Trends
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From The New York Times:

The past decade has produced thousands of new foodies and new yogis, all interested in healthier bodies, clearer consciences and a greener planet. Inevitably, the overlap between the people who love to eat and the people who love to do eagle pose has grown. In 2007, a combination yoga studio and fine dining restaurant, Ubuntu, opened in Napa, Calif.

Yoga retreat centers now offer gourmet cooking classes and wine tastings; New York yogis trade tips about which nearby ashrams (Anand) and studios (Jivamukti) serve the best muffins.

But not everyone agrees that the lusty enjoyment of food and wine is compatible with yogic enlightenment. Yoga purists say that many foods — like wine and meat — are still off limits. Others, like Mr. Romanelli, say that anything goes, as long as it tastes good. The debate is exposing rich ores of resentment in the yoga world.

“The culture of judgment in the yoga community — I call it “yogier than thou” — is rampant, and nowhere more than around food,” said Sadie Nardini, a yoga teacher in New York. (“Yogis” are those who do yoga, teachers and students alike.) More:

More Manish than Marchesa

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on October 27, 2009
in Fashion
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Sarah Khan, an editor at Travel + Leisure, in the Wall Street Journal:

In that era, the nascent Indian fashion industry was moving beyond the local tailor, or darzi, stitching Bollywood knockoffs on demand and into a legitimate business. At the peak of my awkward adolescent years I could hardly be considered a fashionista, but I was hooked on this glamorous world. Whenever I went back from my hometown in Boston to visit my grandparents in India, I’d follow fledgling local designers by tuning into shows like Khoobsurat on Zee TV, where then-little-known models like Arjun Rampal and Lara Dutta (who have gone on to become Bollywood megastars) were first seen strutting on the catwalk for early design icons like Rohit Bal. I’d request copies of popular magazines like Femina and Elle and Verve whenever anyone was coming back from India, savoring the colorful couture of Tarun Tahliani, Ritu Kumar, and Sabyasachi. As the industry boomed into the new millennium, so did my interest: ever since India’s first fashion week debuted in 2000, I’ve dutifully paid pilgrimage to websites and blogs to follow the latest collections in realtime. More:

A stitch in time

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on October 13, 2009
in Fashion and India
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The first Indian designer at Paris Fashion Week, Manish Arora has paved the road to Europe for India’s vibrant fashion scene. In the hectic lead-up to this year’s triumphant show, he chats to Katie Trotter about bridging the gap between East and West. From the National:

The master of psychedelic representation, Arora has carved out a place for himself in the centre of the global fashion market, and currently retails in more than 75 stores worldwide, including Harrods and Dover Street Market in London, Maria Luisa in Paris and Saks Fifth Avenue in Dubai.

When we meet in Delhi, there are just under two weeks until Paris Fashion Week begins – without a doubt the most difficult 14 days in a designer’s calendar, so I am surprised that he has agreed to the interview. I am led through to Arora’s office, which is beautiful and busy in that dizzying Indian way, the walls covered in art and thousands of textile samples spilling from every imaginable space.

I had been expecting Arora to be equally colourful in person. But today he is not. In fact the only snip of colour on his entire get-up comes from a small patch of purple on his trainers. He is a modest-looking man in an unremarkable pair of jeans and black T-shirt – all crinkly in a cool way. The only hint of bling comes from an alarmingly expensive-looking watch that threatens to blind me from certain angles and which hangs from his wrist in a way that appears almost painful. More:

Manish Arora: A new geometry

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on October 2, 2009
in Fashion
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Suzy Menkes in the New York Times:

PARIS – As if the eye-popping projection with its graphic shapes were not enough, strobe lights blinked and giant crystals winked from sparkling dresses.

Well, this Manish Arora show was at the Crazy Horse, the famous song-and-dance Paris cabaret. And the Indian designer has never met a piece of embellishment that he did not love. More:

Also in NYT: Multinationalism in fashion’s tribes:

For Mr. Arora, the designer, fashion has been a lifelong pursuit. But only relatively recently did he conclude that he was ready for the international stage. “I could have stayed in India and made quick money doing wedding clothes,” said Mr. Arora, referring to the multimillion-dollar domestic market that has tended to deter most Indian designers from competing beyond their homeland.

“But I never wanted to do just that,” he said. In India, Mr. Arora added, “I could never grow my brand in the same way, could never have the same collaborations, like the one I did with Swatch, or have a billboard in Times Square.” More:

Shahnaz Husain: ‘If it bears my name, it catches on’

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on October 1, 2009
in Business, Fashion and India
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Shahnaz Husain has single-handedly built a business empire selling Ayurveda products. Elizabeth Flock in Forbes India:

shahnaz_husainYour family is involved in the company and your daughter is the president. Will she take over the company after you are gone?

I’ve had no thought of teaching or planning the takeover. Nelofar is with me all the time, it’s all she’s been doing since she was born. She studied in London with me, and she stays here to hold down the fort when I travel. She was always there – she doesn’t know anything else. She is a very clever child and she has better qualities than me. She is gentle, soft, balanced. She’s into expansion, always saying “Mummy open here, mummy open there”. She is the balancing force. And she developed the popular gold line herself.

What about your grandson, Sharik? He’s made some dynamic changes in the company. How do you feel about those changes?

He does the exports business, he just joined recently, in 2003. I don’t think he will change things. He will just combine my vision with his vision. He has new ideas all the time. He might do the foreign delegation when he gets the time. He doesn’t follow me, because just being near me is his training. We all three don’t move together. I’ve never said no to him, because his ideas are visionary. The company is running in a certain direction, and he won’t change that. But he is a tomorrow child. More:

Fashion designer Anand Jon gets 59 years for sex crimes

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on September 1, 2009
in Crime and Fashion
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From Los Angeles Times:

anand_jonCelebrity fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander was sentenced to 59 years to life in prison Monday afternoon for sexually assaulting seven young women and girls he enticed with the promise of modeling jobs.

Alexander, acting as his own attorney, presented a lengthy argument asking for a new trial because of juror and prosecutorial misconduct. He also alleged inadequate defense by his former attorneys. Judge David Wesley denied the request.

Alexander stared ahead blankly as Wesley handed down the sentence. His victims, who were seated in the jury box during sentencing, wept.

Alexander, who was a guest designer on the reality television show “America’s Next Top Model,” was convicted last November of 16 charges of rape, sexual assault and other crimes. Wesley handed down the maximum sentence to Alexander for all but two of those counts, saying he showed no remorse for his actions and posed a danger to other young women. More:

[Image: Anand Jon website]

And below, a 2007 story from the New York Times:

The designer who liked models

So who is Anand Jon? A rapist? Or a mark? To some he is a garden variety arriviste, an overeager cad, who crossed the line into criminal territory when his sense of entitlement overwhelmed his good sense. To others he is a struggling design talent, who played by the same elastic set of rules that govern everything else in the celebrity world and fashion industry – except he was caught.

“We all know that when success comes very young at a very high level, people somehow lose a part of their compass,” said Catherine Saxton, a longtime fashion publicist in New York, whose clients have included Dennis Basso, but not Mr. Jon. “He was flying in a very high crowd and flying in that crowd for quite some time.” On the other hand, “there are a lot of young girls who want to be in fashion, who want to be in shows, who want to be photographed – who want it,” she continued. “It’s very easy to be subverted.”

She added: “He had the sizzle. If you were a wannabe, he was a great coattail to ride on.”

IT was a single sexual encounter, around midnight on March 4, that led to the series of accusations against Mr. Jon. According to the police report and to lawyers involved in the case, the designer had been corresponding on the Internet for months with a petite blond 19-year-old woman in Seattle. She was a lingerie model. He was interested in getting to know her. She sent pictures. He said Los Angeles Fashion Week was coming, and did she want to visit? She did. More:

Indian supermodel in ugly row

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on August 24, 2009
in Fashion
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From the Guardian:

ujjwala_rautShe was India’s first supermodel, sashaying down runways with Naomi Campbell. He was a film producer and buddy of Guy Ritchie. They met on a blind date in Paris.

But what began nine years ago as a “mad affair” has descended into a vicious fight through India’s labyrinthine legal system over property and a child – filling the Delhi papers with a tale about the fickleness of family, fame and fortune.

It was not meant to be like this. The 31-year-old catwalk queen Ujjwala Raut and her British businessman husband Maxwell Sterry, 47, were once the toast of New York’s fashion scene – they married in David Bowie’s Manhattan apartment with the pop star’s model wife Iman overseeing the nuptials five years ago.

But, up until recently, the couple parried accusations of violence, kidnapping and of even using political influence to bend the rules. Until late tonight it appeared Ujjwala had all but triumphed. More:

And in the Independent:

Mr Sterry’s lawyer will argue his case before the country’s Supreme Court, claiming that Ms Raut has used her “powerful connections” to have his client’s visa quashed and separate him from their young daughter. “My wife being an extremely influential and powerful person has tried to create havoc in my life by initiating false complaints,” Mr Sterry, 47, was quoted as saying. More:

[Photo: Ujjwala Raut on the cover of Elle India, December 2006]

Milan men’s fashion: A passage to India

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on June 25, 2009
in Fashion
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From the New York Times:

Milan: The word “colonial” is being bandied about here, with quite a few designers taking inspiration from the khakis, collarless shirts and tunics that are emblematic of that era.

Aquascutum’s collection presented in still life form, along with a preview of a great new campaign shot by Tim Walker, showed delicately tailored jackets and lightweight coats along with boldly printed nylon outerwear pieces in the style of Indian batik prints. The label’s designer, Graeme Fidler, also lifted a smart trench from the archives of 1957 with some tweaks to proportion and fabric. The result underscored why this house is ready for a Burberry-like renaissance.

Neil Barrett also took a trip abroad showing a variety of neutral color-blocked trench coats along with dhurrie-style pants (dhurrie is a coarse cotton or wool rug woven in India). Colonial-style cropped-sleeved jackets were shown with long layered tunic T-shirts and Raj-inspired prints in sleeveless shirts and pants for a contemporary take on this traditional look. More:

And here: A nod to colonial India

From Versace couture to a jail in Mumbai: a socialite’s long and lonely road

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on June 9, 2009
in Fashion and Society
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Mumbai socialite Sheetal Mafatlal, president of Mafatlal Luxury, and wife of industrialist Atulya Mafatlal, was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle in diamond and gold jewellery. Sheetal Mafatlal brought upscale brands like Valentino to India. Namrata Zakaria has her profile in the Indian Express:

A favourite story about Sheetal Mafatlal is how she would hate being called a page-three perennial. “I belong on page-one dahling,” she said at one of her many parties. This was, of course, before news of her husband’s family dispute made national headlines four years ago. And before Monday morning, when Mumbai woke up to front-page reports of her being detained at the airport for alleged duty evasion – she was arrested today for allegedly not declaring jewellery worth over Rs 50 lakh.

Later in the day, a city court remanded her to judicial custody until June 12, a ruling some legal experts felt was harsh – her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said “some disgruntled opponents of the Mafatlal family and industry” had tipped-off police and other authorities. This is not how Sheetal would have liked to make news. But none of her friends, many of Mumbai’s beautiful society ladies, said a word in her defence. Or spared a thought wondering if she was being made a victim as her lawyer alleged.

Not too long ago, these friends had enjoyed the expensive champagne and mutton raan her art-filled home on Altamount Road was known for, and had Sheetal light up their parties, swilling from crystal tulips, dressed in the latest couture, and only couture made from European designers’ ateliers. More:

Padma Lakshmi’s sexy burger commercial

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on May 2, 2009
in Art, Fashion and Food
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Padma Lakshmi’s jewelry strategies

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on April 30, 2009
in Fashion
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From the Wall Street Journal:

padma1There’s an error women sometimes make when they wear jewelry, says “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi: “You notice the jewelry more than you notice her smile or her face. Jewelry should not upstage you.”

To avoid that, Ms. Lakshmi has a simple strategy. “I pick one hot point on my body that I’m going to highlight,” she says. “Let one area do the singing — you don’t want to hear three songs at once.”

For example, Ms. Lakshmi, who just launched a jewelry line that will start selling at Bergdorf Goodman in May, sometimes wears an eye-catching stack of bangles on her wrist with small earrings but no other jewelry. Or she’ll wear long earrings to draw attention to her neck and collarbone and slip on a pinky ring as a small, additional touch. “You want to have one main story and one back story, and that’s it,” she says.

[image from www.padmalakshmi.com]

More:

Indecent exposure?

Published
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on April 3, 2009
in Fashion, India and Society
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akshay

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar could be in trouble for unbuttoning in public. He had a button — just one button — of his pair of jeans opened by, well, his wife.

The star of the blockbuster Singh is Kinng is a brand ambassador for Levi’s jeans. He was walking the ramp at a fashion show in Mumbai and stopped before his wife Twinkle, sitting in the front row, and asked her to open the top button of his Levi’s.

Just one button (click here to see the YouTube video), and all in fun.

But a Mumbai-based man who calls himself a social worker thinks it was an “offensive” act and has filed a police complaint against the actor, his wife and the organizer of the Lakme Fashion Show.The police are looking into the complaint, wondering what law is applicable to the case.

Akshay Kumar told The Indian Express: “If I have hurt anyone’s sentiments with my actions, I’m sorry because I didn’t mean to.”

More:

Indian fashion designers are still high on hope

Published
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on March 27, 2009
in Economy, Fashion and India
. Closed

Namrata Zakaria in The Indian Express:

Inescapably, most of the chatter at the two just concluded fashion weeks in Delhi was more about money and less about clothes. The Lakme Fashion Week which commences in Mumbai today, at the flashy Grand Hyatt hotel, promises to propagate ‘the business of fashion’ like no other. But the worldwide cash crush has seen several businesses in this industry tear themselves apart – retailers are begging for sales, magazines are shutting down by the week and merchandisers are too few and far between.

But don’t tell the designers that just yet. Despite a severe drop in sales (a 25-30 per cent on an average) in the last season alone (six months), the garments that were on the runways at Delhi were not as sober as the international mood. It’s almost as if, as a fashion writer puts it, when the ship is sinking, to rev up the band and dance till the very end.

More:

Fashion’s new and bigger role in India

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on March 26, 2009
in Fashion and India
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Fashion in India used to be exclusive. Now with as many as three organisers and twice as many fashion weeks, fashion has become a ‘janta’ event, writes Guy Trebay in the New York Times.

2971662206_663c9d5962_mIT’S just something I threw together,” Himanshu Verma, an arts organizer, said at one of the mobbed events marking Wills India Fashion Week here. “It’s called a taxi sari,” he added, referring to the aggressively garish outfit of polka-dotted organza and polyester brocade he wore. That pronoun is no typo, by the way: Mr. Verma is a man.

The luxury malls thrown up over the last several years now look a lot like ghost towns. The few customers remaining seem less disposed to part with their money than just to wander around.

But the urge to participate in the global fashion fray has taken hold in a city that simultaneously played host to two fashion weeks, featuring 150 designers, and to pack hotel halls and poolside lounges and ballrooms to near capacity.

more

[Pic: Sajjad Shah under the Creative Commons license]

Indian designers make their mark with craft

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on March 24, 2009
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Suzy Menkes from New Delhi in IHT:

The monkey swung down the runway with all the swishy style of a Bollywood diva – paws outstretched, head turned to the front row audience. This little primate was only a handbag, but as part of a catwalk menagerie at Manish Arora’s shows, it brought a roar of applause.

“India is not all about peacocks and elephants – it is about the artisan and craft,” insisted Namrata Joshipura after her show at Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. And she was right. For in spite of the celebrity circus surrounding statuesque models-turned-movie stars and even the kids from “Slumdog Millionaire” walking the runway, Indian designers make their mark with craft. More:

Sari’s elegant drapes inspire a fine line for all time

Just as elegant Indian women are looking for dressy clothes that edge away from the traditional sari, European designers have turned to draping for inspiration. Swathes of fabric, in silk, satin or jersey, are designed to caress the body in a way more familiar to Asian cultures than the cut and sew of the West.

From Donatella Versace to the iconoclastic Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf, the idea of wrapping and lapping was the look of the season. At Balenciaga, designer Nicolas Ghesquière was inspired by a visit to India to switch from sci-fi futurism to the sari drapes. More:

Anna Zegna on helping India

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on March 24, 2009
in Business, Fashion and India
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Suzy Menkes, fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, recently talked with Anna Zegna about her company’s work in India:

Ms. Menkes: Now, where are we talking about here? Of course, we’ve all seen ‘‘Slumdog Millionaire” and we’ve all seen the slums of Mumbai. But you’re not in a big city in India, are you? This is not where you’re setting up your school for tailoring. You’ve chosen a special project.

Ms. Zegna: Yes, we are in the seventh poorest part of India (the state of Andhra Pradesh, on the eastern coast). It’s a very small area called Vijayawada and there are two big slums, which we visited and you really get the feeling when you see ‘‘Slumdog Millionaire.”

So the approach is going there with local people because, unless you are introduced by locals, there is really nothing you can do – and to meet personally each person, each woman, and allow them to get out of this terrible reality. Kids still sleep on the street. Women cook on the floor. There is no education.

And through this local association, which is called Care and Share, we were really allowed to relate to them and start making a little drop in the ocean because there is a lot of poverty. But if you start somewhere, you can improve, little by little, the lifestyles.

More:

Everyone loves a slumdog

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on March 20, 2009
in Fashion, India, Indian elections 2009 and Movies
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slm11

Their parents cannot afford the expensive outfits Rubina Ali Quereshi and Azharhuddin Mohammed Ismail Shaikh strutted on the ramp for designers Ashima-Leena Singh at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. The farmhouse they were whisked away to may as well have been on another planet. And but for the Oscar success of Slumdog Millionnaire their photo op with Congress president Sonia Gandhi would never have happened and they would have been just two of the millions of kids growing up in slums.

Yet, Delhi clearly couldn’t get enough of the ‘cute’ slumdog kids with the buzz in political circles that they could even be roped in for the Congress campaign.

Meanwhile, what is it that the kids themselves want? According to reports, they’ve asked Sonia Gandhi for better housing.

Are the kids being explotied or are they being presented with a rare opportunity? Do send us your feedback.
To read more reports click here, here and here.

LA’s new lady

Published
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on February 21, 2009
in Culture, Fashion and Movies
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She’s expertly navigating the red carpet, one pretty dress at a time. ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ star Freida Pinto is Hollywood’s latest style icon. Parizaad Khan and Rachana Nakra in Mint Lounge:

pintoLooking at images of Freida Pinto descending the red carpet in some of the world’s hottest fashion labels, it’s difficult to believe that she once shopped at Fashion Street, a street market popular with Mumbai’s college students.

The 24-year-old resident of the Mumbai suburb of Malad has been hailed by the foreign press as Hollywood’s latest It Girl as she does the rounds of the awards circuit with the rest of the cast and crew of Slumdog Millionaire. Pinto has come in No. 1 and No. 3 for two consecutive weeks on Vogue’s 10 Best Dressed, a weekly list of stylish women that the magazine’s online edition singles out. She’s also featured in the March issue of Vanity Fair. Blogs on celebrity dressing, such as Bellasugar.com and Gofugyourself.com, have raved about, among other things, her hair and eyebrows.

[Photo: www.freidapinto.com]

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Also in Mint Lounge: Freido Pinto on what she’s thinking about on the red carpet:

‘I have mastered the art of graceful exits from the car’

Spinning a new yarn

Published
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on January 31, 2009
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A designer takes khadi on a new journey. From Mint Lounge:

khadi_modelThe 5-hour car ride from Kolkata to Chowk village in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on a bumpy, broken road is sure to leave you with a sore back. This journey is probably why the region has escaped the attention of potential handloom buyers, who flock to more accessible hubs in the state.

But 29-year-old Kolkata-based designer Soumitra Mondal is willing to make the trip once every two months to nurture his camaraderie with the local weavers and reassure them that their craft is still valued.

Silk weaving is the main cottage industry in Murshidabad. Around 16,000 families in Chowk, in the Islampur area, and 30 neighbouring villages are engaged at various points of the process of silk production-from separating silk threads from cocoons and spinning the yarn to weaving them into cloth.

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Has India lost its allure?

Published
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on December 15, 2008
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Vanessa Friedman in Financial Times:

mcqueen2Fashion, as the world outside may or may not know, has been having an increasingly hot’n'heavy affair with the subcontinent, and I’m wondering if a break-up is imminent. And if it is, what does that mean for Alexander McQueen’s Christmas sales?

McQueen, you see, was heavily influenced by India in his much-lauded autumn/winter collection, dressing his models in eye-poppingly intricate necklaces, earrings and headdresses from the Gem Palace, the Aladdin’s Cave of Jaipur that has become as important a stop on the itineraries of fashionistas as the Taj Mahal. Empire-waisted, sari-like chiffon dresses topped legging/trousers, and brocade silks were embroidered à la Maharajah.

In this, however, McQueen was merely following in the illustrious steps of Jean Paul Gaultier, who featured spice-toned silks and turbans (there always has to be a turban) in his spring 2008 collection for Hermès, which then picked India as their theme for the year – announcing the choice during an extravagant poppadom-filled launch lunch at an Indian folly in the English countryside, complete with orange-dyed sheep. All three were preceded by Donna Karan, however, who years ago came back from a trip to India with saffron on her mind, not to mention her catwalk. And she, of course, was but another link in the chain.

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Fashion’s seamy edge: Anand Jon is guilty of rape

Published
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on November 14, 2008
in Crime and Fashion
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In December 2006, Newsweek magazine listed Anand Jon Alexander as one of the people to watch in 2007. On Thursday a jury of six men and six women in Los Angeles found Jon guilty of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assualt and other charges. The 34-year-old graduate of the Parsons School of Design, New York faces life in prison.  Jack Leonard has the story in the LA Times
anand21A Beverly Hills fashion designer, once touted as a future star of the catwalks, was found guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting seven girls and young women, capping a two-month trial that offered a sordid portrait of the fashion world.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for seven days before finding Anand Jon Alexander guilty of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault and other charges.

The designer, who goes by the professional name Anand Jon, sat in a light-gray suit and yellow tie and showed little emotion as the court clerk announced the jury’s verdicts to a crowded downtown Los Angeles courtroom. Behind him, his sister gasped and buried her head as she sat with friends and relatives.

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And on how Anand Jon’s image was shattered, read the IHT story here.

Twin focus Of attention

Published
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on November 1, 2008
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The breast comes out of hiding, becoming a fashion statement in its own right. Shefalee Vasudev in Outlook:

Tribhuvan Tiwari / Outlook
Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari / Outlook

The It-Breast has arrived in India.

Boobs are no longer an item number. Nor just fatty tissue to be squashed inside repressive Libertina bras, to be bashfully taken out and handed over to the committed boyfriend who must become husband once he’s handled them. Now to be trendy, you must be brazen. In this ’showing-it-being-more important-than-having-it’ age, women’s breasts are having a ball. Even as some societies pursue the back-to-basics mantra-as many as 4,000 women in the US had their implants removed last year-Indian women are doing the opposite. That includes women in their 40s, when breasts need to be given constant lessons in upward mobility.

In the wet area of the gym I go to, I’m often amused at the way women indulge their boobs with creams and fragrance, marvelling at each as if it were a piece of precious jewellery. Precious they are, as any full cup would admit. God forbid if you have androgynous Fashion Tits. Functional only on the ramp, they must become a handful for a plus-sized lifestyle off it.

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Indian bride

Published
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on October 26, 2008
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Victoria Beckham on the cover of Vogue India