Cannes 2013 is on and this year the festival will see the largest contingent from Bollywood as Cannes is celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. Bollywood stars who have already landed at the French Riviera are Amitabh Bachchan as the 12-Day Cannes Film Festival opened with the screening of The Great Gatsby, Vidya Balan who is part of the illustrious jury, the lovely Frieda Pinto and Sonam Kapoor who is there as one of the Brand Ambassadress for L’Oreal.
Cannes Film Festival is keenly watched by fashionistas to dwell over the style quotient of divas from the celluloid. Vidya 
Balan made three appearances, all in traditional Indian wear by Sabyasachi Mukherjee – one in a maroon lehenga (I particularly loved the simple Choli bereft of any gaudy embellishment), another in a lovely ivory saree paired with a brown blouse with gold embroidery on the shoulders and a final one in a peach coloured lehenga-styled in Mughal regality for the Gatsby screening. The final look was a little OTT for me.
Big B made a couple of appearances. The sporty/safari jacket that Bachchan donned was out of place. Rest of the Gatsby team were dressed up in greys and blacks. Bachchan’s striped blue Safari jacket and white pants and shoes did not compliment his natural style. And gawd that belt at the waist was a disaster. At The Great Gatsby screening Amitabh Bachchan was again the odd one out in his shimmering BLINGY jacket. Could have gone for a Bandhgala with sober embellishment if he wanted BLING.
Sonam Kapoor please apna Nath utaar do. (No pun intended! Nath Utaarna also means losing virginity, which I am sure Sonam’s done with.) Our stylish diva too opted for an off-white saree (Anamika I think) with a lattice work full-sleeve jacket for Gatsby screening but that huge nose ring was definitely an eye sore. Another appearance in a scalloped Anamika Khanna jacket with lattice work paired over high-waist pants was chic. She was also spotted with Frieda Pinto in a black and grey ensemble was nice too but I have my reservations over wether those gold danglers went with the look.
Oh yes Mallika Sherawat too was there at The Great Gatsby screening in an yellowish-orange sleeveless gown. Thank god there wasn’t any slits or sheerness or cleavage revealing elements in her ensemble.
Legendary film-maker – Steven Spielberg is visiting India on Anil Ambani’s invitation. Ambani and Spielberg’s relationship is now a couple of years old since his company, Reliance Entertainment invested in Spielberg’s company, Dreamworks. Ambanis have been regulars at the Oscars now. They were seen with Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Fields of Lincoln, which Reliance Entertainment co-produced with Dreamworks. Last night Reliance Entertainment hosted a talk show – “Steven Spielberg in conversation with Amitabh Bachchan”. Accompanying Spielberg is Dreamworks’ CEO & Co-Chairman, Stacey Snider.
Amitabh Bachchan twitted about Spielberg, “the guest in conversation .. simple, honest and with immense candor ..”. Post the conversation Big B twitted,“ …and then after its all over .. a quiet dinner amongst the four of us …”
Would love to see this conversation. Any idea when it’s going to be aired???
Prada released four sketches from Miuccia Prada’s collection of over 40 dresses for Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. True to Luhrmann and Prada form, the dresses aren’t an obvious rehash of twenties style, but rather an idiosyncratic take on the period. Dreamt up in collaboration with Luhrmann’s wife, Oscar-winning costume designer Catherine Martin, the dresses take their cue from pieces from the Prada and Miu Miu archives: AW11’s vaguely sixties fur-collared fish scale dress makes an appearance in a new twenties guise, and SS11’s graphic, vibrant stripes have been re-imagined in sequins and plastic trimmings.
“I usually try not to literally reference periods in my work, because that’s not the way I think,” Prada stated in an interview. “But when I worked on the costumes, I realized how many pieces could become very 1920s with a little intervention and another point of view.” It will be the third time the designer has worked with Baz Luhrmann having previously collaborated on his 1996 adaptation of Romeo & Juliet , for which she designed the suit Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo wore during the wedding ceremony, and also for the series of short films that were featured in the Met’s ‘Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations’ exhibition.
The Great Gatsby slated for May release is anxiously awaited in India as it also stars the legend – Amitabh Bachchan. No he won’t be wearing Prada as she designed only for the women in the movie.Bachchan will play the role of Meyer Wolfsheim and looks rather cool in his upturned moustache.
Hear you can have a look at the Trailer of The Great Gatsby and yes, Amitabh Bachchan features in the 2-minute trailer unlike Anil Kapoor who was missing in the Mission Impossible trailers: http://youtu.be/h7AFnJbETLw
You have experienced a media blitzkrieg after the passing away of Bollywood’s first superstar – Rajesh Khanna. All the TV Channels went 24X7 on the ‘Phenomenon’ called Rajesh Khanna.
I don’t have anything extra to say than what has already been said but share with you some rare images from Babumoshai (‘Gentleman’ in Bengali)!
My personal favourites are the one of Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia with their first born daughter and the happy family portrait of Rajesh Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Twinkle and Rinkie. Yeah the one of Hrishikesh Mukherjee with Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan in ditto very 70s style printed shirt is cool one too. The lip-lock picture of Rajesh Khanna with starlet Laila (who was murdered) in the unfinished movie Wafa is best not commented upon.
Dior Homme has come out with a “Black Tie Sneaker”. Is it India-Inspired???
Well Indian men’s biggest fashion faux-pas was to don sports-shoe with a formal suit. The Babus wore those chunky white Action sports-shoe with Safari-Suit (Yet another fashion history of India best forgotten!), the blushing groom donned a pair of dazzling white Lakhani sneakers with a double-breasted brown polyester suit and even Dhirubhai Ambani was occasionally spotted wearing sneakers with a suit or the Safari-Suit.
Now Dior Homme is peddling the “Black-Tie Sneaker” and claims to be “inspired by street culture and created in couture spirit”. The High-Top sneaker has flashy branding too on the sole and the heel for nouveau-riche show-offs. But would you wear a sneaker with your Tux and attend a ‘Black-Tie Affair’? I wouldn’t.
The sneaker with a linen sporty suit is okay. Amitabh Bachchan wore Converse sneakers with linen suits and so did Arjun Rampal in Ek Ajnabee and both looked cool but wearing sneakers with a classic suit is stretching things a bit too far. But then fashion is weird at times and am sure there wouldn’t be dearth of takers for the Dior Homme ‘Black Tie Sneakers’.