Booked up

Purulia Chhau dancers performed as part of the fashion procession at Tarun Tahiliani’s book launch where Katrina Kaif and Sobhita Dhulipala were also present; Mehr Jesia cheered on

On Thursday evening, mid-day was invited to a fashion procession that opened with a cast of supermodels, headlined by Mehr Jesia, Carol Gracias, Lakshmi Rana and Binal Trivedi, and ended with Bollywood stars Sobhita Dhulipala and Katrina Kaif, as the couturier's coffee table book, Tarun Tahiliani-Journey to India Modern, was launched. After a delay of three and a half years, it all finally came together like a rebelliously beautiful pre-draped TT saree, at Mahalaxmi Race Course, coinciding with the opening of the first edition of Art Mumbai.

The blaring music was a retro set of Indian baraat songs courtesy Midival Punditz. Jesia, an old TT ally, held court long after her ramp act, crouching near the photographers' pit, hooting and cheering as the procession made way. It was a moment that spoke quietly about gold-star friendships in a fickle fashion industry.

Spectacle is standard at TT's fashion shows but this presentation was a lot to take in, even for Tahiliani's longtime followers. The models, artistes and performers walked on one of the inner pathways of the Race Course as a motley audience of culturati and fashionistas watched from the sidelines. The clothes displayed were a curation of his greatest hits including from the critically praised Kumbh Mela collection of 2013. The format was far from a catwalk show. Tahiliani created carnival
tableaus of Kathakali and Purulia Chhau dancers, wedding band players and stilt walkers crisscrossing the models.

What we wish had been done differently though, is four men wheeling in an elephant chariot with Tahiliani's niece Aria Parikh and daughter-in-law Ananya seated atop, showering petals along the path as part of the finale act. It somehow contravened the 25-year-old brand's "modern India" point of view.