That Paris has been the international capital and the mecca of fashion world is fact which very few can question. It still hosts fashion shows regularly, sets fashion trends and builds up new fashion benchmarks year after year. Now, it appears Delhi is determined to surpass Paris at least in the number of fashion shows it is hosts these days. Fashion shows are one index of the growing economic prosperity of the Indian middle and even lower middle classes which are turning in ever increasing numbers at these shows.
Creativity and quality take their own time to develop in every art form. The basic intention behind these shows is to raise awareness level of the general public about the fashion industry and trigger the creative juices of the artists to work faster-better-prettier.
Delhi is however yet to emerge as the hautest and a credible fashion destination of the world. Some of these fashion shows tend to deteriorate into ‘tamashas’—fun dens. Though a paan vendor has every right to be at the fashion shows, the intention behind the visit is not to enjoy and appreciate the art as such, but to ogle at the meaty legs and arms of the participants’ during their cat walks on the ramps.
The organizers too put up the fashion shows for the purpose of entertainment and advertisement rather than for the development of fashion consciousness in the visiting public. These shows are held to launch or advertise new cars, cheap whiskeys, toiletries, paan masaalas, malls, toilet cleaners and so on.
You may wonder what these things have got to do with fashion shows. Though the display of meaty legs and arms is part and parcel of the show business, what hurts most are the lewd guffaws and snide remarks of the paan masalaa stockists and dealers, or those of their ilk. They drool, pass nasty comments and snap some naughty pictures with their snazzy cell phones. A fashion show ends up as a tamaasha for titillations.
Recently, a company making coffee chose to take the fashion shows route as a strategy to promote their new products. An executive from the company, under conditions of anonymity, revealed the way this strategy is being implemented. She revealed that guys from her company contact upcoming fashion designers to commission them for fashion shows. The brief provided to the fashion designers is itself pretty brief! “Put up a show where clothes are very short, body-clinging, have deep necks and bare backs.” When a designer suggested displaying long over coats with coffee colours because winter is about to set in, the company guy shot back saying that the only reason these fashion shows are organised by the company is because the company wanted the stockists and dealers to have fun. What else, after all is a fashion show about?
That Delhi may take the place of Paris in the coming years is a point of debate. Nevertheless, one this is quite certain. The city does boast of a big pie in the number of fashion shows that are held in the subcontinent. Now, whether they are ‘fashion’ shows or fashionable shows, this is the second debatable point – and maybe the only debatable point which is of any consequence with regards to the growth of fashion industry in the city and country.