ChicMode- The fashion Walk

“Fashion” they say “fades, but style is eternal”. And one has to admit that the Bhawanipur Education Society College – the BESC in general and BE-ites in particular have style, oodles of it. But as Prof Dilip Shah, the Dean of Student Affairs of the college pointed out right in the onset, the meaning of “style” in the BESC lexicon is not restricted to physical attractiveness, leave alone the costumes and the cosmetics, but is about inner beauty – the poise, the confidence with which a BE-ite conducts the self, the air of nonchalant self-assurance that oozes out without the conscious effort being evident on the face of it.

However, such effortless elegance does not come free and one must put long and tedious practice to perfect the art. Take walking the ramp of life for instance – to the bystander, the choreographed and synchronized steps may look as though they come easy but ask the models themselves and you will know the sheer energy and effort that is needed to look casual. And with Umang around the corner, “casual” is a term that is anathema in the BESC which prompted the organisation of a workshop aim3ed at honing the art of walking on the ramp – nee, the art of setting the ramp on fire.

The workshop was conducted by Arvinder Kaur, faculty of the Bhawanipur Design Academy (BDA) and was organised by the Fashionista collective of the BESC. The idea was simple – to instill in the students the three pillars on which rests élan – confidence, attitude and expressions. As was repeatedly hammered, the right amount of confidence in the self gives birth to attitude, which expresses itself – the body communicating in a language that is read by the eyes of the discerning. If confidence needs to be expressed, it naturally follows, it is not worth the effort.

Ayushi Swaraj and Rituparna Majumdar, as beginners, were show-stoppers in terms of their untutored, raw energy while many from the fifty odd students who had participated did well to attract the attention of the faculty. The lighting, the soft tunes, the hushed attention of the audience had literally cast a spell and the way the workshop was conducted, with the key points highlighted, spoke volumes about the quality of the deliberations.

Certificates were given to the participants and Prof Shah felicitated the faculty for her contribution to the cause, but the key takeaway remained – the Goddess walk does not come about by physical effort, it is the attitude that fuels the motion.

This report has been filed by Akshat Bothra with cameraperson Siddharth Jha of the Expressions collective of the BESC.