Archana Jahagirdar: Seat-sharing at the Wills Fashion Week

MY WEEK

WEDNESDAY
It's day one of the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WLIFW), and the opening show luckily begins at a decent hour "" three in the afternoon. In fact, on all days, the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) has been kind to everyone connected with the event by starting all shows post-noon. This time's venue, Pragati Maidan, had its share of detractors before the event started. But the carping proved just how little they know about fashion events. The New York Fashion Week, probably one of the biggest events in global fashion, is held in a park. Basically, it's now fashionable to knock anything to do with fashion, so no matter what the FDCI may do, there will always be naysayers. But you know what, shifting the venue to Pragati Maidan is more than appropriate for what is really a trade event.

THURSDAY
Most middle-class people in Delhi, before the economic boom, travelled by DTC buses. And there was this time-honoured tradition in these buses: seating space for two would end up with three people 'sharing'. The front row at the WLIFW too suffers from this tradition of 'sharing'. Being the most coveted seats (as has been stated in these columns in March) those who haven't been so fortunate enough to find their publication's name on them, still want the world to think of them as being important enough. The trick is to spot someone you know vaguely enough and even as you are air-kissing, quickly squeeze into the space between two hapless front-row occupants. Gives the phrase "seat-sharing" a whole new meaning, doesn't it? The other advantage of being in the front row, especially for the hacks, is that editors of prominent lifestyle magazines are ubiquitous there. There is enough time between being seated and the show starting for a fashion journalist to put in an indirect job application to these editors. Trying to get work "" while at work "" is always a good idea.

FRIDAY
Maybe it's the Pragati Maidan effect but the entire event has been subdued, with superfluous airheads not inflicting themselves on unsuspecting ordinary people. This has given WLIFW a more sombre and professional veneer and as we all know, appearances matter. Speaking of which, a significant number of people connected with the industry are guzzlers and smokers. Aren't both supposed to be bad for you? And yet some of the most trendy and glamorous people floating at the venue seem to escape the torment of their excesses. Maybe, one needs to investigate this more closely. Who knows there could be a secret formula for eternal youth and good looks that these people know?

SATURDAY
One more day left for the WLIFW to be over, and I must say that this time one has had a sense of having been at an event that means business. Not that unadulterated glamour is bad in itself but there is a time and place for everything, and WLIFW needs to obsessively focus on the business of fashion.

ALSO...

Walking out of the event area towards the car parking on Friday, I was startled to hear a gruff voice in Hindi admonishing someone over the public address system and telling them "to walk on the footpath." The rather public ticking had no effect. There was no evidence of people using the footpath. Only in India people manage to subvert even this Big Brother-style policing.