Totally expecting to find mannequins with watermelons for heads, Ranjit Rodricks braved the heavy rains on Sunday evening and made it to Zenzi in Bandra to check out what all the fuss was about the much hyped Kalingar Project.
The brainstorm of designer Masaba Gupta, hair stylist Sapna Bhavnani, photographer Joy Dutta and make-up artist Mehgana Butani, the Kalingar Project – an exhibition that was on for all of five hours at Zenzi in Bandra – had nothing to do with summer’s most refreshing fruit.
Instead, it was an art installation of mannequins which had been styled by the trio of Masaba, Meghana and Sapna. While Masaba lent clothes from her previous collections to dress the mannequins, Sapna had created elaborate head-pieces, using real hair sourced from her clients. Photographer Joy Dutta shot pictures of the final product and had it shown continuously on a screen during the exhibition.
“All the mannequins have names,” says Sapna with a wicked smile. “This one is called Self-Portrait,” she tells us, pointing to a figure with a cage filled with plastic flowers on its head and kitschy things like a plastic deep-sea diver and a florescent green water-tap attached to it.
“And this one (below) is Parrot Hilton,” beams Sapna. Sure enough, it had a parrot perched on top.
If these funky names were not enough, we were also “introduced” to Chandel-hair (like chandelier).
Audrey Hat-burn (no prizes for guessing who that is named after)…..
and the Munshi Man who had multi- coloured fluorescent shot-glasses stuck to his scalp – a brilliant idea for a bald person like me to do for the next Halloween party!
Masaba Gupta tells us that they definitely plan to do at least one art-related project a year and right now, she’s busy with plans to shift her boutique from Juhu to Bandra. It will be in one of the by-lanes of this bustling suburb and will house Masaba’s boutique on one level and Sapna’s hair salon – called MAD-O-WOT – on another level. “It’s because of this shifting that I won’t be able to participate in the Lakme Fashion Week this season,” she confides.
Due to the rains, we suppose, not many of the swish set showed up to check out this fantastic collaboration. However, Masaba’s close friends – designer Nishka Lulla and model Siddharth Rawal – were there to encourage her.
We also spotted MTV veejay Siddharth Bhardwaj and heard that Ayub & Niharika Khan had also dropped by with a few friends for a look-see.
We only wish the four artists had the guys at Zenzi whip up some hot tea or coffee for their invites. After braving the downpour, it would have been a great idea to refresh ourselves with some chai-kaapi….or maybe some freshly squeezed watermelon juice….