Fashion street is a dead end street!

The Indians have great sartorial style and are dapper dressers. It hit me hard twice in the last week. The Americans believe in dressing only for formal occasions or when in office.
In the USA , its common to wear shorts and t-shirt for a party. In fact, they wear shorts all the time when they are not in office.

As they say in Rome do as romans do. They also say its easy to catch dirty habits. Well I caught this dirty habit easily and behaved as the romans, I mean Americans for a large part of the last ten years. My mind , it seems , went for a vacation as soon as I arrived home. I should have remembered that I am in India now. One need not be a Gautam Buddha and sit under a tree. Epiphany can strike you even when you are exhibiting your hirsute legs to a group of elegantly dressed gentry sipping cocktails and mocktails.

Also, you need not be badly dressed to make an idiot of yourself. I remember when I joined my first company in London. The Englishmen are some of the finest dressed people. My bad luck I was joining on a Friday. The HR lady who was in charge of my orientation did a perfect job ,only forgetting to tell me about the funky Friday. All came dressed in torn jeans and tshirts.I reached there to find me looking like a bull in a china shop.

Times have changed since we were kids. I was tacky then ,I am tacky now. But it requires more money to keep us tacky now. The fashions have undergone a huge change. Lots of things changed. Branded clothes weren’t available then as easily.But one thing remained constant. No matter what I wear I manage to look cheap!

Style is something which doesn’t depend on the money you spend. It depends on how you can carry it.

The earlier Film stars were originals. I remember the time when Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh were the rage. They made those ugly bell bottoms look hip. Rajesh Khanna brought in the Guru Kurtas. Jeetendra brought white shoes in fashion. Among women, Zeenat Aman was an iconoclast. Before her , the heroines were meant to be all coy and dressed up only in saris. She broke all the barriers. Boy cuts, halters, the minis and the midis. She made everything look great. Sadly these days the stars simply follow the international couture. Its hard to see any special signature style.

Among the politicians, I remember Benazir Bhutto’s visit to India with her father PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She was a big hit with the media because of her style.

The Late PM Mrs. Gandhi too was always immaculately dressed. She had a charisma about her. I remember seeing her after she lost the elections. I was a school boy then. She came to address a rally in Agra. There wasn’t much security as she was no longer a PM. I could see her from pretty close. As the other boys and girls waved, I just gawked. She had that effect.

The late Maharani Gayatri devi of Jaipur had that effect too.

The young generation of politicians are all pretty fashionable and each has his own signature style. My favorites would be Omar Abduallah, Sachin Pilot, Scindia and Rahul Gandhi.

How can we forget the king of fashion , the stylish Sidhu with his matching turbans and ties!

Each one of us may not possess fashion sense but we must at least try to fashion our common sense into not doing something stupid.

I remember my date with pretty Gisela. As we made ourselves comfortable and looked at the menu to order our drinks, I whispered in her ears that I was a hit with girls cos they considered me harmless. I pass out after the first drink. She laughed loudly and complimented me on my sense of humor. That should have been my cue to shut up.

She was wearing a very chic Pierre Cardin dress. As I complimented her she beamed happily. To my horror I heard myself saying, “ Isn’t it ironic that we spend huge amounts of money to buy clothes but our happiest moments are when we are out of them.”

Clearly any kind of sense can’t be taught in the books – fashion sense or even plain horse sense!