Undemocratic Fashion

There is actually something called FDCI. Fashion Design Council of India. If you insist on knowing the expansion.

Its not terribly clear whether it is something set up by designers to "institutionalise" their profession, or whether it is something the government has set up , in a sort of semi interested way, (if such a thing is at all possible); but the person heading it right now, is a retired IAS (Indian Administratice Service) lady officer, with a huge amount of experience in handicrafts, tourism, and setting up of the National Institutes of Fashion Technology (NIFT) all over India.

For a couple of years now, newpapers get occasionally slavishly addicted to writing about the annual FDCI/Lakme fashion shows. There is always some fight going on between Mumbai and Delhi designers which is highlighted. Reams of paper are devoted to how some Page 3 types, are leaving everything they are doing, to fly urgently to the concerned metros, so they can sit in the first row (reserved, if you please), wearing, what my mother would have called "shameless" clothes, and an expression that would make people think they are listening to a debate on the nuclear CTBT. These same people, change into more strange outfits every so many hours; and why not? Even something as sensible as NDTV has a fawning correspondent reporting on the appearance of the various queen bees and king moths, and their clothes and drinks.

All this for what ?

There is this longish stage sort of jutting out into the audience. Every designer has his or her special music playing. The audience is seated at a strategically planned lower level, probably at the ankle level of the parading models. I dont know about the FDCI, but when I was in elementary school, this kind of thing during any Annual Day would have got the parents into an uprising and the principal would have been fired. Ok. Its only children. The audience is only parents. But sitting at that level, and by default looking up someones skirt, is simply not done.

This is, of course, a non-issue at the FDCI. We're globalising, and these faltu things dont bother us.