1. THE
FASHIONABLE
LIFEOF
KANGANA
RANAUT
(so cool, so chic)
ATTENTION!
Follow the new
rules of
military style
AREYOU
READYFOR
YOGA2.0?
The new
asanas,
avatars
and apps
THEVOGUE2015
STYLELISTMEET INDIA’S BEST DRESSED
JUNE
2015
150

2. ROSARIO
BELMONTE
WHO: Make-up artist,
‘Leading lady’, page 152
What has been your
most memorable
personal fashion
faux pas?
“In 2005, Sicily, at my
elder sister’s wedding.
I didn’t approve of my
sister’s choice of man
and rebelled through
fashion—red mohawk,
white ripped jeans,
muscle shirt. It was
totally inappropriate for
a Sicilian wedding.”
SURESHNATARAJAN
RICHARD
DUPUY
WHO: Stylist,
‘A farewell to fedoras’,
page 184
What sartorial look is
next on your personal
fashion bucket list?
“I bought this Zara
high-top hat several
years ago and may try
it out this winter as I’ve
always had a passion for
anything that is of the
Victorian, industrial or
steampunk genre.”
20 VOGUE INDIA JUNE 2015 www.vogue.in
LISA
HAYDON
WHO: Model, ‘Now &
Zen’, page 189
If you were a yoga
pose, what would
you be?
“A headstand. It helps
you understand the
importance of finding
a balance when all is
upside down. This
asana also makes you
instantly look fresh
and flushed, as all the
blood in your body
rushes to your face.”
WHO: Writer, ‘The
change agent’, page 116
What’s the one thing
you learnt about
Neha Dhupia after
interviewing her?
“I was surprised to learn
that she has
an aversion to tight-
fitting, organ-crushing
gowns and when
she sees someone
squeezed into one
she really wants to
ask them, ‘When
was the last time
you exhaled?’”
UDITA
JHUNJHUNWALA
contributors
PORUS
VIMADALAL
WHO: Photographer,
‘Seeing double’,
page 164
Your favourite
monsoon memory?
“I love the monsoons in
Mumbai! From waking
up to the sound of rain,
the stunning view of
lush hills outside our
home to savouring that
morning cup of tea with
my partner, I enjoy this
daily ritual thoroughly,
year after year. We
love playing hosts and
it’s always the most
fun times having our
friends over for a round
of board games or just
banter with music and a
wholesome Parsi meal!”
DIRK
BADER,
WHO: Photographer,
‘Now & Zen’, page 189
If you were a fitness
routine, what would
you be called?
“I would be a crunch,
because the key is
here—if it hurts,
keep going. I am like
that. I don’t give up
that easily.”

3. A
FAREWELL
TO
FEDORASThe 2015 Folio Prize-winning author of
Family Life, AKHIL SHARMA took up
an attractive challenge for Vogue. After
trading in his jeans and sneakers for
Armani jackets, Paul Smith scarves and
other fashionable covers for close to a
month, picking between colours and
cuts became a semantic exercise
Photographed by NICHOLAS PRAKAS
Styled by RICHARD DUPUY
HAIRANDMAKE-UP:INGEBORG/TOMLINSONMANAGEMENTGROUP

4. 185
Seersucker shirt, Giorgio
Armani. Red chinos,
Hackett. Tortoise frames,
Giorgio Armani. Shoes,
socks, Akhil’s own
Opposite page: ‘Miller’
leather toggle coat, Purple
Label by Ralph Lauren

5. 186
HAIRANDMAKE-UP:INGEBORG/TOMLINSONMANAGMENTGROUP
t is a cold Tuesday night
in New York and the Vogue stylist who
has just arrived in my apartment has
strange grey-green eyes whose pupils
are enormously dilated. The stylist
tells me that the eyes are due to con-
tacts. The contacts are from Brazil.
They cannot be bought in the United
States because, among other things,
they can make one blind. He wouldn’t
buy contacts from China, he says.
Even for him this would be extreme. It
is then that I realise that ordinary
fashion, people dressing well, is as dif-
ferent from professional-level fashion
as exercising to remain healthy is from
professional-level athletics.
How can you know what you
don’t know?
My assignment is simple. I am a writer
and professor. Most of every day I
spend sitting in my apartment at my
desk wearing pyjamas. I have been
asked to dress “fashionably” for a few
weeks. Seeing Richard, the stylist, I
realise that I may be in for more than I
had expected.
Richard, the stylist, walks around
my apartment. The walls are white
and there are lots of bookshelves. The
apartment is ordinary—in many ways
anonymous. Even the overflowing
shelves should be familiar to anyone
who has seen a Woody Allen movie.
Richard takes my measurements.
I stand and he runs a measuring tape
across my shoulders and along the in-
side of my trouser leg. While he does
this, I murmur timidly about my per-
sonal style. I tell him that I am moder-
ate, conservative, that I am interested
in maintaining a fine balance. As I
speak, I can hear how I am sounding. I
am saying that I want to look like
everybody else.
Richard tells me what kind of clothes
he prefers: very skinny pants that stop
a few inches above the ankles, very
tight jackets. Is he giving me a preview
of what I am in for?
The clothes begin arriving: boxes,
garment bags, a fedora that sits shyly
inside a plain brown paper bag, more
garment bags. Every day is Christmas.
My sofa gets covered in clothes. I
hang clothes that have gotten creased
in transit on the shower curtain rod.
There are so many of these that the
curtain rod collapses. Almost none of
the clothes are clothes I would have
picked. There is a heather green pair of
pants from Valentino that at first looks
like it has a camouflage pattern but
which, when I examine it more closely,
is covered in butterflies. There is a
white half-sleeve shirt from Public
School that looks, because of heavy
stitching, both casual and heavily
structured. There is a leather coat from
Ralph Lauren which is yellow like a
construction hat and black like asphalt
and the coat is both “street” and also
chic. Then there is the single most
beautiful piece of clothing I have ever
seen, a jacket from Armani made out of
a waffle-weave blue cloth. The blue is
very bright, but the waffle weave
means that not all of the jacket reflects
light and the light that is reflected
makes the cloth seem alive and the way
that the cloth absorbs the light makes
it appear thoughtful. Hanging from a
hanger on a doorknob, the jacket ap-
pears as distinct as a human being.
As a novelist, I am aware of style in
writing. I am thrilled by an author do-
ing something different. Looking at all
the clothes I realise that I am seeing
the same intelligence that I see in sen-
tences. All the clothes I respond to
speak one type of argot and yet the way
the colours and cut are combined, they
also suggest something else.
Still, the clothes are nothing like
what I would normally wear and I
don’t want to put them on.
The things you believe you
know are frequently wrong
For days, I don’t put on the clothes.
Their presence begins to nag at me.
I
Shirt, Dolce &
Gabbana. Navy
jacket, Emporio
Armani. ‘Kensington’
trench coat,
Burberry. Trousers,
Valentino. Scarf,
dip-dyed woven hat,
Paul Smith (all from
Saks Fifth Avenue)
Shirt, vest; both
Public School at
Saks Fifth Avenue.
‘Wilson’ trousers, Rag
& Bone at Saks Fifth
Avenue. Sandals,
straw hat; both
Giorgio Armani.
Belt, Joe Fresh
Turtleneck sweater,
Purple Label by
Ralph Lauren.
Zippered jacket,
Giorgio Armani.
‘Harrison’ twill trousers,
Purple Label by
Ralph Lauren.
Dip-dyed wool scarf,
Richard James. Belt,
stylist’s own. Shoes,
Akhil’s own

6. 187
Finally I decide to wear them some-
where boldness won’t feel out of place.
One Friday evening, I put on the
Valentino pants (costing about
US$1,000), a green Dolce & Gabbana
shirt (about US$1,000), the Armani
jacket (about US$1,400), and a Burb-
erry trenchcoat (about US$1,700) and
go to the Museum of Modern Art. The
combination I wear was decided on by
Richard. I leave my apartment build-
ing, walk down the sidewalk towards
the subway and I feel ridiculous, like I
am in a costume and pretending to be
someone I am not. Partially I feel this
because I have the impression that
people will think I am a show-off.
The museum is packed. Sometimes I
have to move sideways to get through
the crowds. I feel intensely self-con-
scious. I also feel, oddly, that almost
everybody around me is badly dressed.
Men’s pants pool where the trouser
bottom hits the shoe. Women’s blouses
look both blocky and oddly boring. This
change in perception has come about
from having spent days looking closely
at seams, at how cloth wrinkles or does
not wrinkle, talking with Richard, ask-
ing my wife to explain why one piece of
clothing might go with another.
As I wander through the museum,
occasionally, in galleries, on escalators,
in hallways men and women turn to
look at me. At first I think they are do-
ing this because I look strange or that I
am radiating money.
That evening I stand before my
bathroom mirror wearing another
outfit that Richard has selected for
me. I am wearing a white Public
School shirt, a black Rag & Bone vest,
a blue and green Paul Smith scarf
around my neck. My wife comes and
stands in the doorway. She tells me
that I look nothing like myself. I un-
derstand what she means because I
see it too. The clothes that the man in
the mirror is wearing show that he has
completely different concerns from
mine. His casualness and stylishness
are signalling that he belongs to a
world that has more freedom than the
world I belong to. He is probably inter-
ested in different things from those
that interest me. I then understand
that clothes have charisma. The peo-
ple who turned to look at me in the
museum probably did so not because
the clothes signalled wealth or that I
appeared strange, but because the
clothes made me look so full of life.
A week into the exercise, the clothes
continue to make me feel that I am pre-
tending to be someone I am not. I set a
rule for myself to never leave the house
without being in one of these outfits. I
carry bags of groceries home from the
store while wearing the Ralph Lauren
coat. I wear a beautiful sand-coloured
scarf and an Armani jacket that looks
to be made of scales when I go for a
haircut. I feel vaguely embarrassed as I
wear these and yet I am also aware that
I am wearing clothes that are lovely,
that these clothes bestow a radiance on
me, that wearing these clothes I am sig-
nalling an engagement with life that is
otherwise hard to show.
Eventually I begin to feel comforta-
ble being so dressed up. The change
comes with my beginning to adjust
some of the combinations that Richard
has suggested. I start wearing ties
more frequently. I wear sweaters and
jackets over these. The availability of
so many daring items of clothing
makes me be a bit more daring in what
I wear. And then as I put on clothes I
would not normally wear, I experience
a sense of relief. I had not realised this,
but the conservative way I dress is re-
ally a way to be anonymous. The desire
for anonymity, of wanting to blend in,
contains within it a feeling that if I
were noticed I would not fit in or that I
would be inappropriate. The bright
clothes are a way of forcing myself out
of that fear. Once I put myself in the
way of being noticed, I realise that
there is no reason to be afraid.
The hard thing is not to change
but to remain changed
Eventually, Richard comes and packs
up all the clothes. There must be a
hundred of them. He has long check-
lists of all the items that have been
shipped to me. It takes most of a day to
pack them and when they are gone,
there is so much space in my apart-
ment that it appears empty.
Once the clothes have been taken
away, I try to retain the lessons I have
learned. I stop wearing jeans. I stop
wearing sneakers. I do this not because
there is anything wrong with them but
because for me they are a default.
Wearing jeans and sneakers is a way of
not thinking.
The hard thing, though, is not what
to avoid, but what to seek out and culti-
vate. Most of my trousers are solid, sim-
ple colours. I have brighter shirts and
shirts with patterns, but my wardrobe
is designed under the simple rule of
how to avoid making mistakes instead
of how to be interesting. Even more
than this, I experience a lack of confi-
dence without the mounds of clothes
and without Richard to dress me.
I am committed, though, to doing
my best. Most days in the morning, I
think about what would be a way to
dress both well and to show through
the dress an engagement and apprecia-
tion of life. To act on this, I lay out
sweaters and shirts on my sofa. I think
about whether to wear a tie even
though where I teach I don’t need to
wear one. I stop carrying my wallet
and my keys in my trouser pockets.
Weeks pass. My old style of ano-
nymity creeps back into my life. One
day I go to the Museum of Modern
Art. A man with red hair and a red
beard wearing a cream suit and
heather vest walks past me. I turn to
look at him. Before I would have
thought that there was something
dandyish about how he was dressed. I
would have thought he was vain for
having matched the suit and vest with
his hair. Now, I was glad that he had
shared his sensibility with me. n
Cactus-print shirt,
silk tie, pocket
square; all Richard
James. ‘Eaton’
poplin trousers,
Purple Label by
Ralph Lauren.
‘Windowpane’
blazer, Hackett.
Shoes, Akhil’s own