Just a few hours before a Mumbai fashion show last month, a legal eagle’s pretty and petite wife was making frantic calls to all and sundry — a VIP enclosure pass had been sent to her, but alas, she was seated on the humble second row. A strict no-no in many a leather-bound book. In the social sweepstakes, it is the kiss of death to be banished behind the glittering front row, and one that even a gritty socialite can never recover from.
The rise of yet-nascent Indian fashion industry in India has given rise to another phenomenon — the Front Row, and a mad scramble to be there.
But it is not just the chatterati, it is the designers themselves too. As much as a designer may cry hoarse about the seriousness of fashion, and lambast fashion journalists for not knowing enough about warps and wefts, the fact remains that mere days before his show, he becomes a lowly celebrity catcher. What makes a designer’s show a success is not the innovation in the collections or the number of buyers he hoards up, but the front row celebrity coup he has managed to pull off.
Hrithik, Amisha, Shilpa at a Rocky S show |
Jaya, Amitabh and Karan Johar at Abu and Sandeep’s |
Avanti Birla with a friend |
So, besides the presence of the formidable Selfridges buyers at the recent India Fashion Week held in New Delhi, we also had Hrithik Roshan rooting for a garish Rocky S, (this year Rocky had Boris Becker), Kajol and Kareena Kapoor at Manish Malhotra and even Vinod Khanna (calling out to Rahul Dev on the ramp like an eager school boy) at Anjana Bhargava.
Unlike the West, where the front rows are filled with editors of magazines and ‘serious buyers’, Indian shows have front rows marked ‘Reserved’ for friends, family and the photographed. As the New Yorker has recently noted, ‘‘The presence of television cameras at fashion shows has encouraged designers to fill their front rows not only with editors of Vogue and buyers from Bergdorf, but also celebrities such as Melanie Griffith, Madonna and Puffy Combs, who add to the heat of publicity surrounding his collection.’’
Tarun Tahiliani will always have his two favourite muses – Mehr Jessia and Minal Modi – ensconced in Row 1. The former model-now star wife makes a rare photo-op and Lalit Modi’s wife is considered a style icon by many designers (the jet-setting Minal is considered by designers as a style icon who can take their work abroad). Raghavendra Rathore’s shows will have his eligible nephew Shivraj Singh Jodhpur who gets hounded by the media. And the best thing that ever happened to Ashish Soni was the presence of Robert and Priyanka Vadra for his first collection. Likewise, designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla are close enough to have the Bachchans in their front row – if they are not walking the ramp for them, that is. The Jani-Khosla duo pulled off a massive coup when they had Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan (alongwith Sonali Bendre, Raveena Tandon, Rahul Khanna et al) on the ramp, and Jaya Bachchan and Rekha sitting right up front.
Vadra with Priyanka Gandhi |
Congressman Subbirami Reddy with Umang Huttheesingh and Ritu Beri |
Designer Rohit Bal with Robert Vadra |
Kavita Bhartiya of Ogaan with Kamayani Singh (in red) and a friend |
Mumbai shows often have the permanent presence of the Powder Puff Pack. They are Queenie Dhody, Rhea Pillai, Kaajal Anand, Anju Taraporewala, Avanti Birla and Yash Birla (the odd man out). Almost every show has them dressed in their Italian best (Dolce & Gabbana blouses and Cavalli jeans), coming in together like a well-knit pack and rooting for every Indian design house.
Most of the society queens are guests of the popular choreographer Sharmila Khanna who says the phenomenon is here to stay. ‘‘For a designer the most important thing is to have all the ‘happening’ people on his front row,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s bloody disgusting, the way some of them behave sometimes. They sit there, look at others instead of the clothes and chat into their mobile phones,’’ she adds, scornfully.
But unlike the West again, where the presence of Britney Spears, Madonna, George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chelsea Clinton ensure Donnatella Versace stands to gain, an Urmila Matondkar needs Manish Malhotra as much as he needs her. In Bollywood, having a personal designer is an ‘up-market’ trend, especially when many stylists are responsible for the fashion transformation of a largely middle-class sensibility. Socialites, on the other hand will wear a designer dress solely for their own pleasure – their careers do not depend on it.
Even cities like Bangalore, where fashion activity is limited to a handful of lifestyle stores like Ffolio and Cinnamon, the Front Row is a matter of prestige. Rekha and Vijay Mallya would not be seen anywhere else. There are also the two famous Infosys couples — Narayana and Sudha Murthy (who is a regular at every fashion show) and Nandan and Rohini Nilekani. But event manager Prasad Bidapa defends his city when he says people from Bangalore are very laidback. ‘‘I see a lot of front row chasing in Mumbai and Delhi, but Bangalore doesn’t care. They just drift in and out,’’ he says. ‘‘I’ve even seen people in other cities being asked to leave their seats so someone more famous can take them,’’ he adds.
While Bidapa may find the scramblers ‘‘socially insecure,’’ Page Three of city supplements giving the designers a lot more attention than before, the Front Row becomes an address that everyone aims for. ‘‘Fashion shows have become about people who want to show themselves off and be seen, without having anything to give,’’ a regular at fashion shows explains, caustically.
Designers agree socialites who fall into the category of long-time clients, also serve the purpose of endorsing their label by being seen at the after-parties. These include the redoubtable Priya Paul of Park Hotel, the elusive sophisticate Parmeshwar Godrej, the iconic Simi Garewal (‘‘only because Tarun is (Tahiliani) such a good friend’’), Ramona Garware (who found time to change outfits between shows at India Fashion Week), Vani Ganapathy (a Bangalore regular), Arundhati Nag (south superstar Shankar Nag’s wife), Shobhaa De (who will attend every show she is invited to and yet swear she has never bought a designer outfit in her life), Anuradha Mahindra (who wears a lot of Delhi designers besides the biggest European labels), Amita Birla (a frequent buyer at Ogaan), Apollo bahu Kamayani Singh and Tina Ambani (if it is only for charity for Gujarat, please).
Not to be ignored is Mr Moneybags or possible sponsors. This explains the presence of Vijay Mallya at the front rows, never mind that he pays more attention to his drink rather than the ramp. Mallya’s Kingfisher has ruled the Bangalore fashion roost for a decade now (which explains an aberration called Manoviraj Khosla) and now the brand is eyeing Europe.
But this is the fashion world — a realm of glamour and facades, publicity and hardcore business. A designer needs to strike a balance between his long-time clients who he needs to pamper and, the people he can show off to the world by saying, ‘‘this is the type of person I can draw to my show.’’
And then comes the third category: the Seat-Crashers. Those who will defy ushers and wrest their way to the power seats. Tarun Tahiliani at a recent show in Mumbai, adopted an internationally popular concept and labelled seats with the names of his guests. But the crashers yanked off the original names and parked themselves without a care. The designer could only hope they got hit on the face by a model’s flying shoe.
With inputs from Delhi