BUSINESS MODELS

A lot of models are not ready to wait for the sell-by date of their ramp careers to find new callings. Models Diandra Soares and Binal Trivedi have slipped in to designing shoes; Vidisha Pavate and her husband Darren Centofanti have been importing New World wines from Australia and supplying them to five-star hotel chains around the country; Ignatius Camillo has made a name for himself as a DJ in the Delhi circuit while many, like Sapna Kumar and Kiran Rao, double as hair stylists.
“You see, modelling doesn’t tax your intelligence. All you need to do is to look good for a specific period of time. But I need to be further involved in my work,” says model Sahil Shroff. He featured with Aishwarya Rai in the famous Lux campaign last year before following it up with the popular Tata Indica ad whose catchline went, “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.”

Shroff will have you know he is anything but dumb. At 29, he wants to pack in as much as he can into his daily grind. He has moonwalked as a bartender in Australia while earning his master’s degree in applied information technology from Monash University in Australia. After seven years, he returned to hometown Mumbai to take up modelling as a full-time career, teamed up with friend and fellow model Prashant Raj Sachdev to participate in an adventure sports series all over Asia and won it too. Bollywood too figures in his plans.
But there’s more to his portfolio. A year ago, he started his ensemble boutique Hue in Mumbai’s upmarket Colaba district. The store, located close to the popular Leopold’s, has a steady stream of customers popping in and checking out the ensembles on offer. Shroff, who has also just expanded it into an art gallery where upcoming artists showcase their work, says he is happy with the way things have shaped up.

The brawny model worked on every detail of his year-old store—from marketing strategies to store styling to conceptualising of the clothes. Of course, having a family that works in the export business has helped, but Shroff credits modelling for shaping his sensibilities.
“In a certain sense, both my careers feed each other. Modelling has actually made my job easier. The constant travel and the new experiences make you receptive to new ideas. You meet a lot of people, learn about new fashion trends and business modules,” he says.
Even though television, films and grooming remain chartered territories, for most models, the best place to look for inspiration is within the industry. Rao was a regular at Bandra’s fashion store and salon Mad-O- Wot, where she gave customers makeovers.

Binal Trivedi had her own public relations company, Madjic, which handled accounts for prominent Mumbai nightclubs. Which meant that whenever there was a party, Trivedi got paid to call in her own celeb friends.
“It made sense at that point. I have been modelling for almost a decade now and sometimes it gets a little tiresome. And in any case, waiting to get into something else after your career gets over seems pointless to me,” says Trivedi, who is now in the process of setting up her day spa in Mumbai. “I have been zipping around London and coastal India learning different therapy techniques. If all goes according to plan, it should be launched by June,” she says.
It’s not always easy to find clients. “Initially, convincing people about my potential was a little difficult, but I did up a few homes for my model friends, and the word got around. It’s been relatively smooth since then,” says Xavier.
There are some, of course, who have moved away from the fashion world to do their own thing. Every year, model Tina Chatwal heads to Zurich for a week for a session with dentists from the Cleft Lip and Palate International Association. A charitable organisation run by doctors, they treat Indian kids with dental problems and Chatwal, a qualified dentist, feels just as easy with patients as she does on the ramp. “My schedule is so packed otherwise that I don’t get to practice in India, but a few years down the line, I’d definitely like to get back to it,” she says.
But time, most say, is never really a problem. “As models, our working hours are flexible—it’s usually in the evenings. Then there are seasons when there’s very little work. So it’s not difficult to fit in time for things you are keen on,” says Xavier.

Model Tapur Chatterjee, the other half of the Tapur-Tupur duo, has been designing jewellery in her spare time. A trained commercial artist from Mumbai’s Sophia College, Chatterjee has many awards to her credits, including a national award for a painting she had done. “I am not very ambitious and modelling leaves me with very little time to paint. But designing jewellery is less time-consuming, and gives me a great high,” she says. Chatterjee, who works from home in her spare time, says “it’s therapeutic to get away from the madness of ramps and do something quiet.”
Pavate, on the other hand, is testing her entrepreneurial skills. She has launched a company called Pick of the Brunch with her Australian-photographer husband Centofanti. “We are both into food. But in India, usually, you only get Italian wines. So every time we went out for dinner, we would wish we had a little variety,” she says.
The two attended wine courses in south Australia and decided that it could work well in the Indian market. “We know a lot of people who are into fashion and food in a big way. So it wasn’t difficult convincing people. Once we started off the wines started doing the talking. In fact, we called our company Pick of the Bunch because we deal with high-end prize-winning wines,” explains the leggy model. The two have been supplying to most of the five-star hotels in Bangalore and Mumbai, including JW Marriott, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency. Delhi is next on the list.
Is it worth the hard work? Pavate answers for her tribe. “It’s very satisfying to have people compliment you on your skills rather than on something as trivial as looking good.”