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Ash's western dresses disappoint Asian audience
A daily described her appearance at Bride premier as "Geisha girl with a poodle slung around her neck."
The fate of the much-vaunted Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice at the Box Office will be known only later this week but the dress sense of its heroine Aishwarya Rai has already come under flak, unleashing a fierce controversy. Should she have worn Indian dresses instead of the western designer costumes at the various outings and events during the build up to the film in London?
The uncharitable view is that she possibly interpreted the old dictum 'Do as Romans Do' as 'Dress as Londoners do' and mostly sported western style costumes, albeit by top designers like Armani. It is true that while her recently unveiled wax figure at Madam Tussauds was draped in a heavily embroidered red crepe chiffon sari, making ladies, both Indian and western, gasp in admiration, Ash had, for the occasion, chosen a red satin black lace dress.
She looked pretty but as one celebrity cameraman put it: "She would have been enchanting if she wore a sari similar to that of her replica." At the Sahara Music Awards she wore a beige-coloured top and pair of trousers with a jacket.
She wore an Armani dress at the premiere on Monday at London's Palladium. Most among her Indian fans and even the local ones were quite a bit disappointed. But, the comment in a daily by its correspondent that "Her latest look, unveiled at the Palladium London... can only be described as Geisha girl with a poodle slung around her neck" could, however, be at best described as a bit "Johnsonian".
It is well-known that her beauty was in true sense acclaimed after the featuring of Devdas at the Cannes Festival. In the film she looked gorgeous in Indian dresses. She hit off in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam too, in which she mostly wore saris.
Designer Reena Dhaka was quoted in the daily saying: "Don't people handling her PR know better? She has such immense potential to carry off Indian clothes." The blond wig at the Bride and Prejudice premiere did not help matters, either.
The celebrity hair designer Dar, who did her hair for and accompanied her to all the functions here including sittings for the GQ and the New York Times, contested the ridiculing and sarcasm about her wearing western dresses.
"Bride and Prejudice is her first picture at the international level, which has opened the scope and chance for her to attract western producers. She cannot get a bigger part at the international level by just looking a beautiful Asian girl." She has to mix and match the Indian look with what appeals to the western audiences.
The western fan, indeed, were truly stunned by her charm at the Monday premiere. For them Armani dress was only an "enhancer". She pales all the women here, admitted an Indian dowager look alike.
