Wrong number

The problem is: I just don’t get haute couture. Perhaps standing between me and my aesthetic appreciation of the latest catwalk rage is that old sour grapes syndrome. Preeti Singh writes.

It’s that time of the year again. Time for some serious competition between the off-stage P3Ps (page three peeps) and the on-stage D2BOs in the spotlight. That last one? ‘Dare to be original’, of course. The Indian edition of Fashion Week is here, and I’m back to feeling really small, stupid and insignificant.

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The problem is: I just don’t get haute couture. Perhaps standing between me and my aesthetic appreciation of the latest catwalk rage is that old sour grapes syndrome. For there is as much probability of my becoming svelte enough in this lifetime to pull off an inventive contraption on the catwalk as there is of LK Advani becoming prime minister in 2011.

So, to me, seeing little multi-coloured post-its as facial accessories; or spectacles, lamps, clocks, crockery, cables, telephones and the entrails of cassette tapes as headgear — as well skeletal apparitions being unveiled with much fanfare — is a bit like watching Martians carry away trophies after gleefully sacrificing the little people of Planet Earth. Well, perhaps the katori-thaali and spectacles do signify the signs of our times, having something to do with famous counterparts that have returned to the fold recently, and the lamp might be a new way to tap renewable energy, but telephones sitting atop the cranium? Somehow it just doesn’t ring my bell.