Fashion as I see it.- A viewpoint by Radhika Deshmukh

The names of Jon Kortajarena, Dree Hemingway, Mark Jacobs, Patricia Gajo, Sarah Casselman, Anna Osmushkina, Christian Lacoix, Paul Frederick and other veterans will forever be etched in the minds of wide eyed and eager, adolescent students of fashion all over the world. Their passage to immortality was engraved in the golden books when they filled our world with vivid hues of Slingback Platforms and Stephano Totes, Red Yacht Bags and Reef Wedges, Fishnet Camisoles and Fern Clutches and Blade Heels and Berets. Their contribution to the world of stars cannot be measured by the number of Alexander Julians and Neiman Marcuses that they have.

Today, though fashion is not just restricted to botoxed ladies with hair-up-dos that have unpronounceable names or snobbish gentlemen looking down their aristocratic noses at earthly mortals. Today fashion does not only mean the expensive dressers or wine drinkers. It does not only involve people who forgot to even thank their stars when they were born with a platinum spoon in their mouth.

Fashion today, does not follow rules, nor does it have a definition. It does not have a set of colors; neither does it have a particular texture. Fashion does not seek a single medium; nor does it seek a result. Fashion does not listen to anyone and neither does it want people to be constricted in its preaching. Fashion does not have a cost today. It does not begin from an object that you wear or do, nor does it end anytime, anywhere. There are no novices of fashion and no masters of fashion.

Fashion has grown immensely with the passage of time. It has soared high by spreading its wings while at the same time spreading its roots deep inside. Fashion today is a world-wide religion that has bound people together, but not tied them in any way. It has taken to the streets instead of being closeted up in swanky ballrooms with glass ceilings.

We see the big names from the fashion world earning big Benjamins with their concepts and ideas. But the real fashionistas are not the ones who have lemon tea and ginger cookies in rooms with floral wall papers, with fashion, but they are the ones who are buddies with fashion and have pop corn and coke with it. The real fashionistas are the ones who have a quiver full of ever burgeoning ideas that lets them get down and get jiggy with fashion. They are the ones who have real fun with fashion while combining different colours, prints and textures and wear what they want and do what they do while staying close to themselves. And they are the ones who will always be rewarded and lauded by fashion in its truest form.

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