The city - sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce.
A couple of Mumbaikars take cover from the rain that lashed Carter Road in Bandra West
Soaking up some fun
A couple of Mumbaikars take cover from the rain that lashed Carter Road in Bandra West on Thursday. Pic /Pradeep Dhivar
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Rahul Mishra offers a hint of normalcy
A model wearing a creation from Rahul Mishra's Butterfly People collection
After experiencing the quietude, we have all understood the crucial connection we share with the living world and what it could do for our minds and welfare. Having seen the selfish shroud lift, there are growing whispers not to let it fall again. Some identify it as an existential crisis. Rahul Mishra calls it Butterfly People.
Born from introspection, Mishra's Autumn-Winter 2020/2021 collection, which aired on the night of July 7 as part of the Paris Couture Week digital-only schedule, was a necessary reflection on couture—"what is the relevance of couture in such times?" "Every stitch, every knot is strongly related to the present and future of an artisan, especially hit by the pandemic," Mishra wrote in his show notes. Butterfly People thus became a literal and folkloric aesthetic around which Mishra built the 13-piece collection.
Rahul Mishra
The 10-minute presentation felt more like a fashion reportage film capturing the process, the preparation and the staging — pictorial essays of Mishra speaking about the collection sliced between joyful songs of embroidery hemmed by needle-and-thread as they stabbed the fabric, and models in lean, loose silhouettes transmuting into mythological creatures. There were flights of unfettered fancy in the foliage-laden gowns and skirts, and the appliquéd butterfly masks, which are clearly part of the post-COVID world's modern woman's real wardrobe. The amount of skin on show was also notable, which, combined with a burst of 3D flowers, gave the collection a sexiness that couture often lacks. As the lockdown days wear on, Mishra's designs offer a hint of normalcy by way of reminding us just how fun it is to dress up.
Raise the bar
The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) had recently started an initiative called Rise for Bars to fund support for F&B workers faced with a loss of livelihood. The first initiative under it has resulted in '5,000 each being transferred directly to 3,300 such affected people.
NRAI president Anurag Katriar told this diarist, "We have more initiatives lined up, but these are still early days to talk about them."
Why Oprah has a line to Mumbai
Mumbai author Shubhangi Swarup's award-winning debut novel, Latitudes of Longing (HarperCollins India) won the hearts of bibliophiles not just in India but across borders. A riveting read about love, loss and nature that took seven years to pen, the title made it to The Oprah Magazine's summer reading list. "It has been exactly 10 years since I wrote the first lines of my novel.
The journey was intense, uncertain, at times it almost cost me my life, and yet here we are. I am very grateful for all the love it has received," she shared with this diarist, adding that besides Oprah's summer reading list, it was also the June pick for the Goop book club run by Gwyneth Paltrow. "This moment is an outcome of many years of struggle. I will always remember the hard work, discipline and faith that went into its making," she said.
It's time for an intermission
Are you someone who notices the smallest details that others tend to miss while watching a film? At G5A's latest addition to their Virtual Cinema Club series, Intermissions, Ishan Benegal and Neeraj Jain will discuss the visual language of cinema. "We select two films by the filmmaker of the week and discuss its thematic and technical aspects every Saturday. This series will discuss two scenes from two separate films and break them down. We will focus on cinematography and discuss the anatomy of a scene, the potential choices that a director makes and how a story goes from script to screen," Benegal (in pic), G5A's associate artistic director, told this diarist. If you're a film nut who enjoys this sort of stuff, watch a live stream on G5A's Youtube channel on July 11 from 9.30 pm.
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