Bollywood blockbuster 'Dhoom' on fashion runway
- IndiaGlitz, [Thursday,October 21 2004]
A motorbike screeched on to the black runway and women in leather micro skirts and jackets in smiling fluorescent colours stormed up to the cameras in a sizzling show that brought Bollywood hit "Dhoom" on to the fashion stage.
Sashaying to the tune of the title track of the movie, which has set the cash registers tinkling like no other this year, models in orange, blue and red faux leather celebrated the true spirit of the biker woman.
Southeast Asian pop queen Tata Young belted out "Dhoom, dhoom... feel the heat now" as young designer Mandira Wirk sent down models wearing biker helmets with just a hint of fur trimming for feminine delicacy in her otherwise sassy collection fall/winter 2004 show at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Single malts flowed at the show, part of the Blenders Pride fashion promotion where liquor major Seagram's pitches Indian fashion.
Wirk extended her label by introducing a line of leather jackets and pants for men late Wednesday night.
Her male models walked menacingly on the runway, with fake black eyes and glistening wounds on the arms and face -- clearly Wirk was pushing the line in portraying what can only be described as violent sex clothing, emphasised by the whips and chains that they carried.
The image of the cool rider and the hot biker has been big in India, pushed primarily by the success of "Dhoom", a cop-robber comic-thriller starring Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham and Uday Chopra and produced by Aditya Chopra.
Wirk exploited the inherent cool quotient of glistening muscle on zooming bikes using faux leather and merry colours with élan.
"I haven't slept the last two nights," sighed Wirk backstage, in a shoulder-less black gown and a big glittering brooch and a new sweeping haircut.
"And this collection has been a whirlwind - lots of new, untried things for me."
One of these was black lace, which she used for the first sequence of the short dresses with linings in turquoise, ochre and rust and with tiny hints of semiprecious stones.
Lace, especially black lace, made a comeback after a long time on the Indian runway with this collection.
The sprinkling of fur sometimes seemed a little abrupt but brought the sense of winter definition. And Wirk really outdid herself in the use of tiny mirrors and crystals in her saris and churidars and kurtas.
With a nod to the country's billion-dollar wedding market that she like every other designer must satiate, Wirk showed lots of ethnic wear laden with Swarovski crystals in a grand culmination.