时间：2022-08-21 05:11:07
The other week Bunny and I were in what is now called Mumbai but is still Bombay for me. I like Bombay (all right, Mumbai, if your insist). each time I’m there I experience something new. A new cuisine. A new kind of theme party. A new sort of Bollywood bling. And this last time was no exception. once again Bombay (ok ok Mumbai) was going to offer me an experience I’d never had before.
Bunny was taking me to a fashion show. I’d never been to one before. In fact, I had no idea of what exactly it was that they showed in fashion shows. In dog shows they showed dogs; in baby shows they showed babies. I knew what dogs were, and what babies were, but I hadn’t a clue what fashion was, and was looking forward to finding out.
All I knew about fashion shows was that they involved models who walked up and down something called a catwalk. No one seemed to know why a catwalk should be called a catwalk. why not a dogwalk, for instance? well, the answer to that seemed simple enough. If they called the catwalk a dogwalk then people might think that they’d come to a dog show, instead of a fashion show and be on the lookout for a French poodle a la rohit Bal. on the other hand, no one’s ever heard of a cat show, so if you call it the catwalk, no one would expect to see Garfield strutting his stuff courtesy ritu Beri. Just to further confuse matters, however, the catwalk is also known as a ramp.
when I first heard of a ramp, I thought it was a mispronunciation of vamp, which was also a Bombay (all right, Mumbai, for Pete’s sake) product, courtesy Bollywood. Vamps, like the renowned helen, were obligatory stock props in all Bombay talkies (Mumbai talkies? No way!), as much as bottles of Vat 69 and the hunting crop that the villain (generally played by Pran) thanked against his riding breeches. But it turned out that a ramp wasn’t a mispronounced vamp but a specially designed, elongated platform.
But all this information did not tell me just what exactly constituted fashion. what precisely was the damn thing? I had a feeling that fashion had something to do with clothes. But to equate mere clothes with fashion was like confusing daal-bhat with haute cuisine. Clothes were something you wore; fashion was something that wore you. Maybe fashion had to do with Page 3. I knew what Page 3 was. It was the page that came after Page 2. See? these things aren’t really too difficult to work out, if you take a deep breath and don’t panic. Just follow my example. But knowing that Page 3 came after Page 2 was like knowing about catwalks—also known as ramps—and models; all this still didn’t tell me what fashion was. And I was all agog to find out.
We got to the ritzy hotel where the fashion show was to take place. And right there by the door was a resplendently attired individual who seemed to exude Page 3 the way lesser beings emit Bo. oh lookit! I said. My first fashion model. Do you think I could ask for an autograph? But Bunny told me not to be silly, it was only the hotel doorman, and bundled me inside. the place was crowded with people who looked like mobile Christmas trees, festooned with ornament. And those were the men. the women were so dazzling it hurt the eyes. Fashion models? I whispered from the side of my mouth.
But it turned out that they weren’t fashion models but a subspecies known as the glitterati. As distinct from the litteratty, which is what I felt like in my scruffy jacket and jeans.
then the spotlights came on and lit up a long narrow stage. Down which came a procession of the most emaciated creatures I’ve ever seen. I wondered from where the organisers had got those obvious victims of starvation. the tribal lands of Bastar? ethiopia? But what a wonderful idea it was. to display these poor oxfamrejected things as a prelude to the fashion show to allow the well-heeled audience who had come to see the show to toss a bit of largesse their way so that they could buy themselves an obviously muchneeded meal. If anyone ever needed feeding up, these skin-and-bone wraiths did. I was about to chuck a five-buck coin at the stage, the way people do at mujras, when Bunny said: here come the first models.
Models? Not famine victims? weren’t they paid enough to eat with? But apparently fashion models are paid—and paid well—not to eat. It’s called being Size Zero. the fashion designers, however, who design the stuff that the models display, can be—and several of them are—Size XXL. In roman figures, where each X stands for 10 and L stands for 50.
Anyway, now at least I knew what fashion was about. It was about being Size Zero, or wanting to be Size Zero. on the way home I saw a Size Zero in the making. Fashion model? I asked. But I was wrong again. It was a hunger-faster against corruption. Fashion? Guess I’ll always be out of it. Not a Size Zero, just plain zero.