Behind the arclights: Fashion Week’s unseemly underbelly revealed!
16 March 2013 6:18 AM IST
What lies beneath the sheen of the glitzy and glamourous world of the ongoing Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, Autumn Winter 2013-14, is a murky reality of the fashion circuit, that many aspiring models are unaware of till they are trapped in it without any hope of release.
Sources in the fashion industry, who are regulars at the fashion week, talk, albeit in hushed tones, of a life of substance abuse and prostitution, that engulf the beautiful faces and figures on the ramp, as soon as the spotlights are dimmed. They also point to the rise in cases of substance abuse and sex trade in the capital, as the curtains go up on the Fashion Week every year. If that reminds you of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion, it is a case of reel aping the real.
'I had come to audition for the model hunt for last year’s Fashion Week with big dreams of being a successful model. But I had no idea of what awaited me here. I was sexually abused daily and was depressed all the time. The only thing that made me feel better was heroin,' a model said on condition of anonymity.
Millennium Post caught up with models and designers, some who are still part of the industry, and some who have quit, to reveal Fashion Week’s ugly underbelly.
Industry insiders that Millennium Post spoke to claim that it is an industry mired deep in illicit drug usage, sex trade, forced anorexia and mental and physical abuse. Lured by the promise of being a part of the big show, aspiring models are left at the mercy of show coordinators, choreographers or even designers. Not just individual abuse, but the girls who come to be a part of the show, often get entrapped into organised sex trade aided by industry veterans. An industry insider points at the rise in the number of high-profile escorts in the capital during the time of the Fashion Week. ‘Often these escorts are aspiring models who swarm the national capital during this time to be a part of Fashion Week. They are either forced or duped into prostitution by model coordinators, or they themselves become a part of it to earn money to sustain their modelling dreams,’ she says.
Swati (name changed) a resident of south Delhi, is a designer whose forte is traditional wedding attire for high-paying clients. Her introduction to the fashion industry however, happened as a model during the Fashion Weeks in the 1990s.
Swati was eighteen when she began modelling in Delhi. And became addicted to heroin, while doing a variety of photo shoots she'd rather not remember and is embarrassed in discussing. The work she did, and the substance abuse, also led to the break down of her marriage.' I hardly remember my modelling days now, I was so under the influence of drugs while shooting. It’s deeply embedded in the industry, like an infectious disease. Regular use of heroin gradually broke me down, physically and mentally, till I had to be checked into a rehabilitation centre,’ she says.
Some models, who have now quit both the industry and its scary shadows, have time and again spoken up about the issues of prostitution and sexual and drug abuse that’s lurking in the wings of the mega fashion event. The problem, they say, starts when aspiring models start compromising with their morals and better judgement in hopes of getting that plum assignment.
'I have seen one of my acquaintances lose her life here. She would do a fashion shoot in the city in the afternoon or morning and would turn up in the city’s red light district in the evening. She thought of it as a career, until her body turned up in a canal at a deserted area of Outer district,' says Inder (name changed), a model. It is a vicious circle. One is abused, or forced to a life of sex trade and takes up substance abuse to dull one’s senses. Or turns to drugs to maintain that emaciated form that looks good in photographs. But the addiction increases the need for money, which again forces one to resort to sex for money.
Fashion though, is a great gender equaliser. And aspiring male models are sucked into its bottomless darkness as quickly as the girls.
Sources in the fashion industry, who are regulars at the fashion week, talk, albeit in hushed tones, of a life of substance abuse and prostitution, that engulf the beautiful faces and figures on the ramp, as soon as the spotlights are dimmed. They also point to the rise in cases of substance abuse and sex trade in the capital, as the curtains go up on the Fashion Week every year. If that reminds you of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion, it is a case of reel aping the real.
'I had come to audition for the model hunt for last year’s Fashion Week with big dreams of being a successful model. But I had no idea of what awaited me here. I was sexually abused daily and was depressed all the time. The only thing that made me feel better was heroin,' a model said on condition of anonymity.
Millennium Post caught up with models and designers, some who are still part of the industry, and some who have quit, to reveal Fashion Week’s ugly underbelly.
Industry insiders that Millennium Post spoke to claim that it is an industry mired deep in illicit drug usage, sex trade, forced anorexia and mental and physical abuse. Lured by the promise of being a part of the big show, aspiring models are left at the mercy of show coordinators, choreographers or even designers. Not just individual abuse, but the girls who come to be a part of the show, often get entrapped into organised sex trade aided by industry veterans. An industry insider points at the rise in the number of high-profile escorts in the capital during the time of the Fashion Week. ‘Often these escorts are aspiring models who swarm the national capital during this time to be a part of Fashion Week. They are either forced or duped into prostitution by model coordinators, or they themselves become a part of it to earn money to sustain their modelling dreams,’ she says.
Swati (name changed) a resident of south Delhi, is a designer whose forte is traditional wedding attire for high-paying clients. Her introduction to the fashion industry however, happened as a model during the Fashion Weeks in the 1990s.
Swati was eighteen when she began modelling in Delhi. And became addicted to heroin, while doing a variety of photo shoots she'd rather not remember and is embarrassed in discussing. The work she did, and the substance abuse, also led to the break down of her marriage.' I hardly remember my modelling days now, I was so under the influence of drugs while shooting. It’s deeply embedded in the industry, like an infectious disease. Regular use of heroin gradually broke me down, physically and mentally, till I had to be checked into a rehabilitation centre,’ she says.
Some models, who have now quit both the industry and its scary shadows, have time and again spoken up about the issues of prostitution and sexual and drug abuse that’s lurking in the wings of the mega fashion event. The problem, they say, starts when aspiring models start compromising with their morals and better judgement in hopes of getting that plum assignment.
'I have seen one of my acquaintances lose her life here. She would do a fashion shoot in the city in the afternoon or morning and would turn up in the city’s red light district in the evening. She thought of it as a career, until her body turned up in a canal at a deserted area of Outer district,' says Inder (name changed), a model. It is a vicious circle. One is abused, or forced to a life of sex trade and takes up substance abuse to dull one’s senses. Or turns to drugs to maintain that emaciated form that looks good in photographs. But the addiction increases the need for money, which again forces one to resort to sex for money.
Fashion though, is a great gender equaliser. And aspiring male models are sucked into its bottomless darkness as quickly as the girls.
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