Take care: Step out in style

Yet another fashion week and yet another end to a glitzy affair. Cause that’s what a fashion week is. Glitzy. The high point of it being the different kinds of ensembles you see, not only on the models and designers but on the guests and journalists as well. Day one quite felt like a homecoming of sorts, considering the fact that the autumn/winter fashion week was just a few months back. It seemed, well too soon, to see those familiar faces five days in a row.

The first show of the week itself was a mind boggling introduction. It was none other than our very own Manish Arora’s �cocky’ collection. The first thing I noticed as we stepped in was the headgears on the ramp with cocks sitting plump on them! Quite an unusual sight, may I tell you. Anyway, besides his clothes what or rather who captured everybody’s attention was Miss Blow. Believe it or not that's the the surname of the erstwhile fashion director of The Tatler. The complete one -- Miss Isabella Blow. She’s the one who has brought the likes of Alexander McQueen to the limelight.

But let’s say this that the entire fashion fraternity will remember her for her hats, particularly the bird hats. The first day she wore a dress with an amazing number of ruffles and a hat which was a ridiculous concoction of feathers. Go ahead. Use your imagination.

Miss Blow’s hats are the creations of one of her fashion associates, Philip Treacy. The latter came to her attention when he arrived at the Tatler office sporting a green felt hat.

Coming back to the designer scene, it was a spring/summer collection alright with nature as the focus of most. The collection that simply charmed all was Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna’s. They did beautiful dresses and skirts in porcelain blues on off whites. As I went to their stall and ran my fingers over the pleats and seams, I was strongly tempted to splurge. I think it’s my bank balance that keeps a good check on my shopaholic tendencies. Which I think is a good thing considering that I saw some sexy retro looking stilettos by Vanilla Moon in the stall area and some of the classiest pieces of jewellery at Suhani Pittie’s.

Some other collections I liked were by J J Valaya, Ranna Gill, Shantanu & Nikhil, Gaurav Gupta, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Varun Bahl. The one which charmed me was Gauri & Nainika’s clothes. Teamed with wide brimmed sun hats, the polka dotted dresses made me feel like going on a long cruise in the Mediterranean, if you know what I mean.

And then came the grand finale with Manish Malhotra’s show. As it happens every year, it was badly organized. Hence, there was a stampede with the photographers trying to rush in and secure places for themselves. The bouncers pushed them from the front and the rest of the photographers did the same from the hind. For a moment, I had the impression that I was going to have a sad end there at the entrance to the show area. But it was one of those moments when I was glad that I belong to the female species. Yes, because three of us girls in the front were allowed in because of the jostling.

The show started off with a sensuous dance performance by a professional dancer couple. The woman was beautiful and exotic and really sensuous. This was followed by the appearance of Urmila Matondkar who gyrated her hips so badly while walking the ramp that I quite she was in danger of hip dislocation. While that didn’t happen, what did happen was what I call an �ouch’ moment. The lady tripped.

The showstoppers were Shahid Kapur and Kareena Kapoor. Though they looked good, their black outfits stood out like a sore thumb amongst a pastel collection. And what did our stars think about the collection of their �dear friend’? A gesture of both thumbs up from Urmila on behalf of the three.

That was fashion week for you. Uh oh, I was missing out on the food. Lots of salad, mustard fish, fish in red wine sauce, yummy biryani style chicken, shredded lamb, stuffed karela, zucchini lasagne...The highlight of the meals for me were the desserts. So Sunday night I stuffed myself up with tiramisu, blueberry mousse, apple strudel, apple tart, chocolate terrine, lemon cheesecake. Yes, it was sheer greed. And I also managed to follow up the above mentioned delicacies with some melt-in-the-moth marshmallows.