As last night blended into this morning I really rued not having a blackberry to update my blog on the fly. (More out of fear that I would forget some of the hilarious incidents of the night than anything else!) Lets see how well my memory serves and what the trusted (and oh-so-innocent looking LPC (Little Pink Camera) captured on digicam…
First up I don’t know if I mentioned this but the place to be (aka where all the cool kids hung out) was the smoking section on the lower level in between shows and trips to the various lounges for drink refills. I spotted Rij Eappen, Troy Costa, Ash Chandler (in a swanky Troy Costa designer suit), TC (flying solo since the ladies were having a girls night out at Cafe Goa), Riyaaz Amlani, Aarti & Kailash Surendranath, Raju & Esther Daswani, Suresh & Devika Bhojwani, Naaz & Remu Zaveri, Hemant Sagar, A.D. & Sabina Singh, Kehkashan Patel, Samir and Palak Sheth, Kishen Mulchandani did the schmooze and booze (well except Ash who sipped club soda on his 40-day detox for Lent which ends luckily enough for him just in time for Rahul & Malini Akerkar’s annual Indigo anniversary brunch this Sunday.) Troy had a snicker over some of the blinged out suits in circulation and revealed that when he gets a request for anything with diamantes on it he generally passes them on to Rocky S. or Vikram Phadnis.
I love people watching and it never fails to deliver, take for instance the shiny poser I captured (with some difficulty) who looked like he wanted to be a look alike! (Someone pointed out a faint resemblance to Mahesh Manjrekar perhaps?)
After Gayatri Khanna and Mandira Wirk (which I hear was quite the special effects extravaganza of wearable chic) Anamika Khanna’s finale show started about an hour off schedule. There was a moment of paparazzi frenzy over the arrival of (one auntie informed me) “Sonam Kapoor, that Anil Kapoor’s daughter.” (I wish I had taken a picture of the look of disdain on her face, clearly unimpressed that Sonam was getting the kind of mileage usually reserved for the Khans or Bachchans, a sentiment shared but others suffering the long wait to be seated as as last minute rehearsals continued inside.)
Anamika’s “Wedding Sutra” was pretty cool; sexy belted ghagra’s and some impressive prints (I also quite liked the music) which kept an animated Sonam clapping and cooing through the entire show (anybody know who her escort was?) I guess the only downer is that its unlikely that anyone except a size zero and 5’8″ model could carry any of it off in real life!
The post party at China House was hopping (to the tunes of Nikhil Chinapa) and while the hosts Sabina & Anil Chopra did the rounds having taken over the entire place (restaurant et all) the middle deck quickly turned into a hotbed for celebrity and socialite activity with Gautam Singhania (who mostly mingled outside and then made a quick exit), Kim Jagtiani, Kadambari, Vikram Raizada, Nina Manuel, Anaita Shroff Adajania, Bandana Tewari, Ashish Raheja, one funny girl in white and black who was stumbling around the room telling anyone who’d listen how she’s breaking into Bollywood till I think she found her male equivalent, Sonny & Preeti Caberwal a lovely couple in town for a holiday (and potential relocation scope) and Matan Schabracq (who’s birthday it happened to be today, and by the way did you know he has an identical twin brother?! Yup there’s been some confusion over which is which from time to time at Zenzi and then everybody figured out that his brother is a tad more muscular than he is.)
So turns out Sonny is quite the youth icon even having modeling for Kenneth Cole. I found this on YouTube…
Sabina incidentally has been keeping a super low profile and looks totally zenned out and happy. She was looking darling in a black and gold Anamika Khanna creation and revealed a hilarious after party incident that happened to her. Apparently at one of the after parties the ill-informed door-girl asked Sabina if she was on the list? Sabina replied yes under Mr. and Mrs. Anil Chopra to which pat came the folded arms reply “that lady’s already inside.” I think that ranks right up there on celebrity management faux pas’ list right after the one where they practically put Naomi Campbell in a glass box and the rest of the VIP guests at an uncomfortable distance. (If they’re still talking about it 4 days later they really were not happy.)
The party buzz however was far from fashion and revolved around a certain madame socialite (not pictured) who unwittingly has reinvented the air kiss. As opposed to the customary left cheek, right cheek she’s been springing an unexpected swivel maneuver on everybody and turning her face to arrive at a photo-friendly cheek to cheek position. Unfortunately the mechanics of this are complex and if both parties aren’t going for the same sort of kiss you end up with a potentially unpleasant pucker position. Once the story spread pretty much everyone was giving the new kiss on the block a whirl with varying degrees of success.
And finally a word on after party fashion (this was fashion week after all) the hot favorite of the night apparently was deconstructed cool. Is this outfit stylish and sexy or trailer park grunge-girl? I’m torn, and apparently so was she.