How to Reach the Front Row

As Delhi Fashion Week kicks off, here are 10 foolproof tips on landing yourself that privileged seat.

March is a hectic month for the Indian rich. The rich busy themselves in hiding their stash, and then, almost as if they’ve been forced to hold their breath a few moments too long, let themselves go—jousting to show how cleverly they fooled the taxman. A prized way to do this is by securing a front-row seat at a fashion week.

Henceforth, both exercises promise to be slightly easier. The Union Finance Ministry has upped Indian tax slabs, and the Delhi Fashion Week has lengthened its runway from 68 to 80 ft, making space for extra front row seats as well.

But then, a longer runway does not guarantee you a seat, just as a longer nose to look down (especially after that Pinocchio act with the taxman) does not certify the requisite snobbery. Front row seats, everyone knows, are very hard to get. But if you do somehow manage to wheedle yourself an invite to a show or two, here are some tips on how you can infiltrate the front row and live to talk.

What’s common to really, really bad parties and really, really big-ticket fashion shows? What’s common to all designers apart from pseudo-intellectual collection notes? PR people. Make sure you are on some public relations busybody’s speed dial. This could mean having to show up for a brain-numbing party in something suitably chic (read strange), or turn up for a yawn-a-minute event scheduled the same evening as the party everyone is going to, but these noble deeds—grateful PR people are a squishy sort—could get you your pound of flesh in the front row of a fashion week later someday.

You risk profile suicide, but it’s worth it. Once safely seated, leave it to your squishy PR pal to juggle egos for the rest of the evening. “It’s strange how much of this has become an issue,” sighs a fashion industry PR professional, “The media alone occupies a whole block, and with global fashion magazines coming into India, it frequently becomes an issue when media refuses to sit for a show just because someone else, a flunkie, has a front row seat.”

Every fashion week has a ‘Who’s that girl’. You must have seen her. She’s the 20-something oozing with sexy individuality, the one with something unpronounceably French about her. Arriving fashionably late, she’s the one who gets the entire front row to pause, quit doodling in notebooks, and whisper. She’s the one every roving photographer manages to capture at least one shot of. She’s the one who’s career as a model and/or socialite the paparazzi is destined to track. She’s the one choreographers like Marc Robinson start getting calls for. Be her.

You may have made it to the front row once, but where your derriere finds place the next time round depends on what you’re wearing. Even if you don’t give a damn, make sure it’s cleverly orchestrated. Remember, it’s uncool to wear a piece from the designer’s older collection. Or even the to-be-showcased collection that evening.

The Indian Front Row Gal must wear her own special choice of clothes. Even a Valentino or Gucci dress runs the risk of suffering a red face, as earlier experience shows—someone else may turn up in the exact same dress. Instead, try some exotica: a little-known, upcoming designer from Japan, or a piece from a small boutique label in Latin America.

“My confidence doesn’t come from my front row seat at a fashion week,” Haseena Jethmalani said in an interview once, “I’d be silly not to sit in the front row if I had a seat, but I really wouldn’t mind sitting anywhere else.” She can afford to say so, knowing full well that dressed the way she does, the front row’s hers anyway.

Money doesn’t talk, it rules. Agreed, that sounds a little extreme, but Sweetie has to get married anyway, right? If she has to wear a Rs 5 lakh lehenga for her wedding sangeet extravaganza, then why not do it around fashion week and extract a couple of front row passes from it?

It’s a little like timing the market, something any High Net Worth Investor understands. Three weeks before fashion week, drop in on a fashion designer with a jaw-dropping trousseau budget, mumble a few words about all this choice nowadays, and wonder aloud what might look good. No matter what designers claim, it’s the “cash from wedding trousseaus”, as a designer quietly admits, that keeps fashion week collections going. If he wants your business, he’ll get you a front row seat. Image guru Dileep Cherian agrees. Nothing works quite like a hearty splurge in the run-up to the event.

A crestfallen ‘Oh-oh-oh’, let out with the theatrical zest of Lady Macbeth, could get you an empathy upgrade to the front row. Others do it flagrantly. “There are people in Delhi who give grief to the designer one day before the show,” says Anurag Verma, “They say their friends are in the front row and sitting elsewhere is humiliating for them.” According to Verma, a fashion designer’s show attaché (the person with the invites), a Delhi restaurateur and his wife are accomplished users of this technique in their quest for frontward seat mobility. “And it’s unfair,” complains a designer, “In a two-designer show, a designer only gets 14 front-row passes. How are we supposed to keep everyone happy?”

Morning shows are low-profile, even infradig, since the gliteratti are still dozing after their late night after-after parties. So if you’re desperate, attend one of these. There’s a good chance you’ll be bumped up to the front row. As a matter of practice, runway shows don’t start with an empty front row. It’s an easy way to lose your front row virginity, but don’t overdo your morning attendance. Catch one morning show, and you can say that this young new designer caught your interest; attend one too many, and you’re just a hanger-on with too much spare time. “Morning shows are not the hot favourites,” warns Cherian, “it’s a disqualification from the big-ticket show in the evening.”

Remember, the whole thing works on networking, and networking works well after three Gray Goose martinis. Throw regular parties for designer friends to tank themselves up, and resist the urge to mention who’s boyfriend went home with which other designer the other night. Cherian suggests you also get on first name basis with the designer’s mother or boyfriend. Some cliques worth cosying up to: Rahul Khanna-Rohit Gandhi’s, Tarun Tahiliani’s or Rohit Bal’s.

Even if you delivered twins last fall, make sure you’re the slimmest person on the planet. It doesn’t matter if the stomach has been pumped or eating a breath mint jeopardises the calorie count. Slim legs can go a long way: when you’re looking at a model walk down the runway with your practised trademark clap, that’s all that our earnest lensmen will be aiming at. Guaranteed to get repeat invites to the front row.

Anil Chopra, usually in a paisley print shirt, is the man to cosy up to for the Lakmé Fashion Week in Mumbai; and Sunil Sethi, usually found with excessive snow-white facial hair, is the one for the Wills India show in Delhi. Make sure they know you by face, or even better by name and BB Pin. It could get you an upgrade.

Lesbians are the new gays, so step out of the closet. Hacks in the West are already recommending it. But then, like Preity-Ness or Shahid-Kareena, you’ll have to appear as a couple at all given moments. To make it the coming out event of the season, arrive holding hands and give each other a casual peck or two. Just don’t over-advertise it. Most of these relationships barely survive a fourth season.

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