Wardrobe Malfunction – Better Prevented

A model walks down the ramp (like the way Aamir Khan describes it in Rang de Basanti) left right left right, a thousand eyes are on her analyzing the dress worn by her for its cut, the look & whether it will rewrite the future of fashion. A dozen video cameras & photographers are waiting to capture those moments to telecast it later into millions of homes. Just when everyone thinks that it is going to be just another one of those shows comes the “ooohs”, the “aaahs”, the “oh my gods” and the “such a poor things”.

The live crowd just witnessed a wardrobe malfunction.

What is Wardrobe malfunction? In a very understandable & down to earth language, if the dress you are wearing lets you down & gives a peek at your assets its called wardrobe malfunction. For example it’s like the joker in the circus who does some acrobatics & in the process tears the stitches in the middle of his pants. We laugh & jump out of our seats & think we’ve got our money’s worth of entertainment and go home happily. But when a model in a fashion show accidentally (or deliberately?) tears her dress or her dress falls or slips off, your eyes & mouth open up wide, you skip a heartbeat, national headlines is made, the state assembly debates it & the police tries to figure out if it was illegal.

The media getting excited over a Wardrobe Malfunction is obvious. Beautiful model, pretty clothes and the pretty clothes falling off or tearing off the beautiful model, aha you have the next breaking news, flash news, news alert and what else do they call it? For that matter, imagine a wardrobe malfunction happening in your college fashion show, don’t you think the students there are going to get crazy about it & discuss it. The media is not blowing it out of proportion its just that today there are over a dozen news channels & all of them are 24/7. So what happens is most times they have to create news if there is none happening to ensure that there is a variety to the viewer any time he flips on to the channel. So invariably we had the recent wardrobe malfunctions news played on every channel with the images of Carol Gracias and Gauhar Khan beaming into our living rooms every half hour.

In today’s world something like this happening is really unfortunate especially for those involved because the video is going to be available in the form of MMS & sent across to thousands of people across the world and will also be there on the Internet. Thereby accidentally or deliberately they have entered the world of soft porn. Its time that the Fashion fraternity in India took some serious measures to counter this before it even threatens to become big. The government discussing the issue in the assembly is also being debated & criticized. There is nothing wrong in that. They are just doing their job. Their job is to discuss the different aspects of society & they did that. That per se is not wrong. The only thing is when politicians raise topics of this nature they need to look at all other areas as well where things like this can happen. If anybody has been to the bathing ghats of the Ganga or the Cauvery will understand what I’am talking about. Infact there are pictures being circulated as forwards of people bathing in the ghats & their wet clothes. Why doesn’t the government discuss that? It’s just that Fashion Week is an organized show and an incident happening there in front of video cameras will be given more coverage. The police have done the wise thing to let the incident pass by giving the benefit of doubt to the organizers.

All said & done the whole concept of a fashion show itself needs to be checked. Really what is their purpose: to show off clothes or to show off something else? What really is the difference between a Fashion Show & a Dance Bar? At least the girls who are employed in those dance bars wear more clothes and are completely covered (my knowledge of the kind of clothes dance bar girls wear is from the movie Chandni bar). Now compare that with the girls in a fashion show. Completely opposite don’t you think? Still nobody talks of a ban on the fashion show. Why? Also, at a fashion show, do people really come to appreciate the dress? How many times have we bought a dress by just looking at someone wear it? Aren’t dresses bought after touching it, feeling it, trying it on?

Wardrobe Malfunction – Prevention is better than cure especially when there is no cure.

PS: Never heard of a Wardrobe Malfunction involving a male model. How is that possible? Probably there lays the answer to how to prevent a wardrobe malfunction.