Fashion week is a great spectator sport and front row its uber-glamorous seat. But you should know the rules of this Me-Too game, its charades, half-celebs and chiffony splendour, to indulge in it. If you are a first-timer at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, here is a primer on what to applaud and ignore.
If you are a fashion week newcomer, be prepared to be bamboozled upon entry. A stab of doubt about your own dress is an obvious sign. The fashionatti are an adept people; they make their own puzzling clothes look like a service to trendiness. As a result, every normal dresser feels like an idiot for the first five minutes at any fashion week. Making the newbie feel out of sync is fashion’s oldest ploy. Put that sudden temptation to assess your wardrobe on hold. There are many illusions here. You buy one, you definitely get another free.
Once you are past the bouncers who smile only when they can disallow entry, focus on the front row. The site of power play, fashion politics and dressing games, it is the battleground of those who drive the buzz and biz of fashion. In Paris, Milan and New York, this is where you spot the Vogue US editor Anna Wintour as she sizes up new collections and assigns them their place in the season’s pecking order, where Jennifer Lopez claps for John Galliano, where Madonna waves kisses at Marc Jacobs and where the pope of modern luxury, chairman of LVMH Bernard Arnault, looks on as Silvia Venturini Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld take a bow.
