The long and tired walk to fame

Manhunt for new faces for the fashion week

Reality shows are the flavour of the season on television. Indian Idol, Nach Baliye 2, Fame X, Lil' Champs are just some of the examples of shows where real people big or small were/are willing to come on national television and be in the line of fire of critical judges and merciless audiences for that elusive shot at fame. The end clearly justifies the means, it would seem.

Maybe that explains that despite less than a 4 per cent chance of success, being criticised and rejected doesn't deter an aspiring model trying to make it for the forthcoming Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week.

Don't believe us? The corridors of the hotel where the auditions were held were jammed with over 425 wannabes smoking, strutting and generally posing, who turned up to try their luck from all corners of the NCR. It didn't matter to this determined bunch that only up to 22 new faces were likely get selected to play only a "supporting" role in the Week.

Divided into pools of 15 each, the registered models had to show their stuff before a panel of judges in the first round. And it was easy to see that the representatives of the fashion fraternity were not too happy with what they saw.

There was Aki Narula shaking his head in dismay more often than not, Rina Dhaka in close discussion with Rohit Bal, and their emphatic "no" could be clearly seen, if not heard, and Rohit Gandhi looked unimpressed. The others on the panel "" Vidyun Singh, Nayanika Chaterjee and Arjun Khanna "" kept a tighter leash on their reactions.

So what were they looking for in the first place? The usual pre-requisites like poise, carriage, confidence, looks and the walk. But over and above that, they wanted a certain je ne sais quois, that extra quality that eludes description, and it was this factor that was sorely lacking. "I'm most upset," declared Bal.

He claimed there was not one face in the line-up that he could see as a future supermodel, or even close, the girls being even more disappointing than the boys. When asked if he saw a certain drop in the quality of aspirants turning up at such model hunts over the years, the designer just said, "I won't go so far to say that. Perhaps, it's our expectations and standards that were higher this time."

This disappointment just may lead to a smaller number of faces being selected this year. The organisers of the model hunt admit that "22"is not a fixed number. If the judges do not find 22 "with it" candidates, the shortage will be plugged by established models.

And going by what we saw at the audition in the final round for the male models, before we were shooed-out, even picking five clear winners seemed to be an ordeal. The judges could reach consensus only on three men when we left.

However, let's not go about lamenting the absence of worthy new talent just yet. Chaterjee and Singh were far more optimistic. "Over 80 per cent of the people here already knew how to walk. They are becoming more ready every year and why not, given the way fashion dominates everyday life now,"says Chaterjee. So who has hit the nail on the head? The designer or the model? You decide, as is customary with all reality shows.