Manish Malhotra & His ‘Pretty’ Boy

“He hates me. He hates my shows”. These are the exact words how Manish Malhotra introduced me to few of his friends just before his show at the India Couture Week 2014. The word ‘hate’ is too extreme and that is exactly what I told Manish Malhotra a month back. I also said, “I don’t hate you. You are an affable guy. I don’t even hate your collections. Hate is too extreme a word. I may like your collection or may dislike your collection. A designer and his/her collection are two separate entity”.

Malhotra wanted to show his magnanimity that even though ‘I hate him’, I am at his show. But tomorrow if he decides that I shouldn’t be at his shows, I would respect that as it is the designer’s privilege to decide who comes and who doesn’t.

Anyway since Manish Malhotra has this pre-emption that I will trash his collection because I have a secret agenda, I will avoid commenting on his collection. Except the fact that the silk blouses and achkans (which looked like were made of raw silk) lacked fluid fall. Raw silk is stiff and a difficult fabric to construct anything with contoured shape. Resultant their were unsightly folds. The gold pin-like embroidery on high collars looked a little like gilded ‘neck-cuff’ on slaves. Otherwise I really like the ‘Sindoori Red’ palette in the collection.

If Rajesh Pratap Singh has made it to the record books for ‘you-blink-and-you-miss’ appearances, Manish Malhotra made the longest appearance – ‘you-take-40-winks-and-he’s-still-there’ taking his bow.

This maybe because he was too happy to have his boyfriend- Rahul Choudhry sitting on the front-row that he didn’t feel like going backstage. Rahul is a Delhi lad and a former model who moved to Mumbai to try his luck in Bollywood. All the best to him. Hope the relationship is holy and not dipped in opportunism that Manish being resourceful in B-town will get him a big break.