All the right moves

Minutes after Lakmeacute Fashion Weeks LFW Gen Next retrospective show on February 11 Masaba Guptamdashone of the 30 participating designersmdashducked out of the staging area with her usual staff entourage A few minutes into the quick exit and the IT girljudge on MTV Supermodel of the Yeardesigner was ambushed by an excited mob of fashion students hustling requests Maam one selfie please This is normal for an Alist film star but where do you see this mad fuss over an Indian designerI think she is a media personality who also happens to be a designer says Sabina Chopra fashion consultant and LFW Gen Next mentor She is never out of attention in a way she always manages to be in the news for hanging out with celebrity friends or announcing a new collaborationLike its the case with her seniors Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi Mukherjee the attention can partly be written off as an upshot of Guptas celebrity connections The daughter of actor Neena Gupta and West Indies cricketing great Sir Viv Richards Gupta grew up being famous Rhea Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor Ahuja are her mates and collaborators She is managed not by a solo public relations executive but Bollywoods top talent agencyGupta is more interested in the delicious pleasure of not caring about others or her own hyperprivileged image From the time she launched her label characterised by abstract native prints and bold colours in 2009 she used fashion to build herself a persona It integrates her background her intuition and daring beliefs the worlds of her work and being a woman entrepreneur and her Instagram life The combination is the winner She understands the time she lives in and adapts Thats a fine art says ChopraIn Netflixs fresh drop Masaba Masaba Gupta also fulfills her childhood ambition of becoming an actor Directed by Sonam Nair Neena and Gupta in their unforced and unaffected normality play satirical versions of themselves in a scripted show that blends fact and fiction They make it all so easyGuptas world has never been what you might call onenote At the heart of her easy is a broad despair of endless selfscrutiny soulsearching even that she shares on her very modern celebrity Instagram account Its a filtered yet unfiltered hot mess of sorts unfolding via chapters on her dorky younger self in pursuit of grownup wisdom her wildly speculated divorce with film producer Madhu Mantena her ongoing struggles to fit in In an earlier interview Gupta had told this writer It taking ownership of your body and self takes a lot of talking to yourself a lot of conditioning and blocking out the noise of what people say or think of you to be at a place I am right nowMasaba Masaba is a story that only she could tell albeit on an even bigger digital scale She stands for a certain fearlessness which is ahead of its time says Nandini Bhalla editor Cosmopolitan India as she draws subtle parallels between Guptas personal Instagram account and the series The idea to calibrate images to create an inclusive immersive experience was first explored by Gupta in March 2015 with her Instagramonly fashion show titled Sugar Plum Masaba is possibly the first Indian designer to master the art of social and digital media She perfected the ultimate Instagram goal authenticity Her decision to openly communicate the personal struggle with her genetic IndianCaribbean makeup or the pain of divorce continues to resonate with many young womenCosmopolitan Indias July digital issue featured her in a twopiece bikini befitting the coverline The SelfLove issue Boldness pays off asserts Bhalla Apart from minor tweaks the images are raw and untouched It confirms body positivity in spades and she Gupta wouldnt have it any other wayI wouldnt be in fashion if it werent for Wendell sir Gupta had said of her mentor the late Wendell Rodricks in a midday article adding When I was starting out everyone told me that my ideas were terrible his stamp of approval made all the difference To make it in premier league as Gupta has done you need to create more than pretty clothes You need to establish a brand that has value in the name itself so the customer who spends R750 on a reusable face mask or R1800 on a Burn Babe perfume feels like they are buying a drop of that spirit The Masaba label is millennial Indianwear more than modern kitsch She has been smart about analysing the retail landscape positioning her label as a bridge to luxury selling at sensible price points while maintaining a playful friendly vibe with colours and prints says BhallaShe is all the capital she needs But a million dollar investment does not hurt In July Flipkarts cofounder Binny Bansal along with Patni Groups Apoorva Patni Abhishek Agarwal of Purple Style Labs and Salarpuria groups Apurva Salarpuria reportedly invested a 1 million in her label Gupta is only 31 and already is a trademark that goes beyond her signature printed lehenga set She is a cosmetic brand Nykaa beauty a jewellery brand Amrapali an accessories brand a celebrity brand and an Instagram brand 1M followers And it is these versatile roles that women relate to because a woman in 2020 ismdashabove all a multitasker Chopra says She has been able to carve out a niche and in doing so brought the right kind of attention to the fashion design space that was once considered a momandpop industryWhat Else To Watch 3 Great Fashion Docs on NetflixJEREMY SCOTT THE PEOPLES DESIGNER AAP Rocky calls Jeremy Scott a big kid with a wild imagination For the uninitiated Vlad Yudins documentary is a good introduction to the controversial designer That he is the creative director at Moschino and often dresses and regularly socialises with Nicky Minaj Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry is just a bonus Its essentially a meltyourheart rags to riches tale Scott grew up on a livestock farm in Missouri with dreams of one day moving to a fashion capital and becoming a designerMCQUEEN Hailed as the most compelling moving McQueen tribute the film has Ian Bonhocircte and Peter Ettedgui focus on the man behind the darkness romance and beauty Through exclusive interviews with the late British designers closest friends and family a dip into recovered archives stunning visuals and soundtracks McQueen is a thrilling portrait of an inspired yet tortured fashion visionaryPic courtesyBenoit Peverelli for Chanel7 DAYS OUT Director Andrew Rossi gives us an unprecedented behindthescenes look into the making of Chanels SpringSummer 2018 Haute Couture show From the studio to the brands ateliers and the ateliers of Chanels Meacutetiers dartmdashthe episode 5 of 7 Days Out follows the late Karl Lagerfeld and his team as they bring his dreamlike haute couture creations to lifeKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our 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