A day of star wars

There is much more to fashion than fashion. Jaydeep Ghosh reports from Mumbai.

Stars poured in at the inaugural day of Lakmé Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2009 and paparazzi and stargazers had a field day. In fact, it made us wonder if we were at a fashion week or a filmi do.

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The ever-elegant Tabu always had a soft corner for southern stars and when she turned up with Nagarjuna for Hyderabadi designer Asmita Marwa, a lot of tongues wagged. Well, she dodged it all using the Hyderabadi connection between Nag, herself and the designer. Ummm, wonder if Asmita is just stitching clothes or more.

Minissha Lamba’s petite frame probably never felt smaller as she attended Day 1 at LFW with much taller women — Tabu, Sonam Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone. She did, however, grab eyeballs on the ramp in an elaborate dress by Archana Kochhar.

The front-row war was between Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi Mukherjee. Manish had Sridevi, Asin, Riteish Deshmukh, Deepika Padukone and Sophie Chowdhry in his front row. One fashion editor quipped, “I was gazing so hard at the front row that I didn’t see Manish’s clothes.” Well lady, you didn’t miss much. Sabyasachi had fewer but more powerful ones at his show — Vidya Balan (thank God she wore a Jaamdani sari), Sonam Kapoor and Sanjay Leela Bhansali with his mom, Leela. His clothes were powerful, too, making a right statement at the right time with his innovative khadi tees. Verdict: Sabya wins.

Vikram Chatwal did not get Naomi Campbell to launch his dream project, the boutique hotel Dream in Cochin. Naomi made a hasty retreat to Los Angeles after the Mai Mumbai show and after-party at 1am yesterday. Chatwal was spotted with another supermodel, Ujjwala Raut. We also saw daddy Sant Chatwal, but Vikram’s wife Priya was conspicuous by her absence. What’s cooking?

No, LFW did not switch off power at 8 pm on March 28 to observe Earth Hour. That’s when Naomi made her runway debut in India.