First in Line
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that everybody who is somebody must sit the front row at a fashion show. It is considered anathema to be seated anywhere else, and our desi divas would rather slit their Cartier-clad wrists than park their shapely derrieres in row two. It is a sorry testament to our times that our social hierarchy is determined by who sits where during those seminal 20 minutes. Those who occupy the front row snigger at those unfortunate enough to be placed behind them. The B-listers, in turn, sneer at those relegated to rows three and four. Beyond row four, only social pariahs are to be found, and they derive solace from the fact that they haven’t been banished to the bleachers.
Every designer would like bona fide A-listers to pepper his front row: Film stars, captains of industry, society queen bees, and the odd (sometimes very odd) politician. Since passes are limited and there is no dearth of deluded prima donnas, a mad scramble ensues each time a top-tier designer announces a fashion show.
It is a sorry testament to our times that our social hierarchy is determined by who sits where during those seminal 20 minutes
And the stratagems and wiles employed by some socialites to secure a front row spot would make both Machiavelli and Chanakya blush.
A beleaguered designer tells of how he is regularly hounded by a couple of social climbers who arrive at his store just before fashion week. They insist that since they are his patrons, they should not only be invited to his show but also be seated up front. When the designer politely declines, they threaten to take their business elsewhere. Rather than succumb to blackmail, the designer shows them the door. The shameless couple then try their luck with other couturiers until they find someone prepared to part with a precious front row pass.
Fashion week organisers recount horror stories of how they are pestered by absolute nobodies. Some hustlers actually hire PR agencies to talk them up, making tall claims about their wealth and alleged royal status. They invariably turn out to be impostors or lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur. A few desperados attempt to gatecrash a show by bribing the ushers. The daughter of a billionaire, interning with a celebrated designer, laughs at how a wannabe couple once tried to palm her ` 500 to let them sit in the front row. She promptly summoned security who booted the duo out. Undaunted, the husband brazenly tried to bribe the bouncers and sneak back inside. A Mumbai social mountaineer is legend for her shenanigans at fashion week where she arrives outrageously dressed, with a pass, usually for the fourth row, and then plonks herself in row one. When asked to move, she refuses to comply, begins to drop names, and claims to be a fashion writer. Some enterprising arrivistes go backstage pre-show on the pretext of meeting the models, then slip into the auditorium and breezily squat up front as the invitees file in.
Fed-up of the chicaneries to wangle front row passes, Wendell Rodricks decided to seat his VIP guests in row three at a recent fashion show. In a masterstroke, he cocked a snook at the establishment and made a powerful comment on the fatuousness of fashionistas. Friends and well-wishers secure in their self-worth gladly moved to the back to accommodate the mad rush, but a few shaky starlets quaked at the prospect of sitting anywhere else but up front.
It is lamentable that some people measure their success by the barometer of where they sit. It is insane to believe that you have arrived just because your bottom warms a seat closest to the ramp. If only people lived life with a little more dignity, they just might prove themselves worthy of a position of pre-eminence.
Filmmaker Fahad Samar’s debut novel Scandal Point, a fiction about society’s obsession with celebrity, releases this month.