Monday, April 30, 2007

EXCLUSIVE MAIN EDITION LEAD: Wardrobe Malfunctions: Accident or Design? April 02, 2006

Gayatri Jayaraman
Sunday, April 02, 2006 01:37 IST

MUMBAI: Underneath the clothes is a seamy story. Fashion’s biggest week ripped to reveal more than flashes of bosom and derriere — MMS clips, blame game, and rumours of publicity stunts.

Police chief AN Roy denied receiving an official complaint, but ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ on three successive days of the Lakme Fashion Week brought the event under a cloud. Turn to p18

“It’s hard to rule out a publicity stunt,” said Pradeep Hirani of Kimaya, a key Indian buyer. “But then a friend from Norway saw it on the news. It’s put Indian fashion on the map. If they can have a Janet Jackson, we can have ours.”

While all lauded the models’ grace under fire, some weren’t too sure about the designers. “The designer-model relationship is one of trust,” said designer Lascelles Symons. “A new model might begin to distrust her designer, wondering if rumours are true.”

Symons, who himself started out as a model, said he does not know how to make it up to Gauhar Khan, who was modelling his skirt when the zipper came undone. “I asked her to stop by my store and pick up a dress,” he said. “But she’s afraid the media would make something of her coming to the store. So she said she’d rather have it sent to her place.”

Khan was livid at being caught on camera. The MMS clips doing the rounds have just made it worse. “It’s not the designers who are doing this to me, it’s the media,” she fumed. “Designers have mothers and sisters and wouldn’t do this to me. Some said I didn’t wear underwear. Don’t they know models wear thongs?”

Designer Narendra Kumar believes such incidents are not good publicity and only reflect bad workmanship. “If it is a publicity stunt, it’s very wrong,” he said.

Nevertheless, designers in Delhi are jittery. “The designers showing on day one have been told to pull in the celebrities after Bollywood walked the Mumbai ramp,” said a member of the Fashion Design Council of India.

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