10 things I hate about fashion shows

1. The obsession with the front row. Every corporate honcho, designer, critic, and socialite wants to be seated in the front row. They’ll fight with PR reps, unseat friends and rip off name tags in their quest.


2. Getting dressed for a fashion show is a production in itself. Style hawks look at you from every angle regardless of whether you’re dressed in designer gear from head-to-toe or jeans and a t-shirt. It really is the equivalent of the rishta aunty brigade.


3. The music. I’ve heard everything being played on the runway, from item song numbers to the latest Bollywood film soundtrack, trance numbers that were popular five years ago and ballads. Can someone just produce the definitive runway soundtrack already so one never has to listen to “Fashion ka hai yeh jalwa” ever again? (True story).


4. Every show can boast of one or a dozen men snapping pictures of models with their cell phones.


5. The introductory spiel. Phrases such as ‘this collection is geared to the working woman’ are followed by models walking out in clothes only appropriate for an after-hours party.


6. The other over-abused phrase ‘an eastern cut with western sensibilities’ is used to describe almost all fashion collections. Stay tuned for when it appears on a restaurant menu describing a steak made from a cow from Australia.


7. Serving food at shows. There is something disconcerting about gorging on prawn tempura while an obviously starved model makes her way down the runway.


8. Designers complaining about everything at the event if they’re not showing, and praising everything if they are.


9. Children at fashion shows. They don’t — just don’t — belong. Neither do cats, as one fashion week proved (imagine a panicked kitten climbing up a model’s arm).


10. The feeling at the end of the night that you will never be able to afford any of the clothes, gems and shoes on display.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2010.