the black sack

arshad, we loved you in tere mere sapne, in munnabhai, even in salaam namaste, and so we'd go to great lengths in pardoning fashion blunders of you and yours. and maria, we can love you just because you are married to arshad bhai. but we cannot forgive you for shoplifting a sack of potatoes, dyeing it black, and wearing it without even bothering to take the potatoes out of the sack. and then accessorizing it with hawaii chappals. how? what? why?

genus: spotted; species: choreographer

it's a leopard! it's an elephant! it's a modified leopard drape! it's a choreographer in leopard's disguise blowing her own trumpet! in any case, whether farah khan intended that atooriksha horn as an accessory or a distraction, it doesn't take away from the blur-inducing effect of her spotty sartorial taste. she has a sweet smile, she produced one of the funnest movies with SRK, is great with dancing. but does she have to imitate a skinned cheetah to make a fashion misstatement?

the softer side of munnabhai

where is a shawl when you need one? oh wait, it's the shawl that sanju baba has cut and paste into a...let me try again. it's a japanese garden silk screen painting that sanjay dutt has mauled into a...nope, that's not it. i know what it is. munnabhai went shopping for sanjay dutt and found a blouse that ended about an inch above his knees. that he had to tuck in. while sporting an off-shoulder collar that exposed his...ummm...pecs. and at the same time had sleeves that drooped over his arms as if there was something even uglier to hide underneath. that obviously could not be hid by hands clasped in front in modesty.
at least he has his cell phone in his pocket.

bappi lahiri, watch out

sometime back, when long lost twins bappi lahiri and adnan sami found each other again, i'd pointed out how the economy of a small african nation might be dependent on the amount of gold on bappi's ample body. it seems like madame rekha is out to outdo him. gold, as i pointed out to suzanne a couple of days back, goes with pretty much anything. but when you start wearing it like you're a walking fort knox, then it's easy to jump to the conclusion that you're better off locked up in a fortress rather than be let loose on an unsuspecting public. but much worse than the gold sari with the gold zari accessorized with gold bangles, a gold tikka, chunky gold necklace that would make an elephant's neck droop, and mammoth gold earrings that would prevent an elephant from flapping its ears is the coy, or if you prefer demure, look on rekha's face. for heaven's sake! this was not even her wedding, not that anybody is lining up to tie the knot with her right now.
then again, given her recent atrocious fashion track record, why should i suddenly raise the bar for her?

beautiful people

this, darlings, is one of those rare occasions when i take a little opaque bag and put it over my mean gene, temporarily suppressing it.
priyanka chopra has rarely had a fashion misstep that i have seen. here, she goes one step further, joining hands with a whole bunch of beautiful people and having herself a fun little time watching bluffmaster with them. alright, so maybe there was some element of shameless plug in it, considering she is the star of the movie. but in my book, anybody who will take out time for underprivileged children has inner beauty. and that, even in my black-hearted opinion, can make up for any fashion misstep. not that priyanka put any foot in the wrong place here anyway. you go, girl!

crowing glory

what on earth?
correction. this cannot be anything from earth. although there are two things that somehow resemble what ash has protruding from behind her head. the first is a gigantic, not to mention ugly, replication of hrithik's hexa-digital hand. the other is of course the more plausible explanation. somehow, ash seems to have mistaken crowing glory for crowning glory. i pity the ginormous rooster that is today bereft of its crown. for today there are two beautiful creatures bereft of their beauty: the rooster, bereft of its comb and hence its beauty, and ash, overloaded with that same comb, and hence bereft of her beauty. and if there is one more sentence in here that is not bereft of the word bereft, i will barf. not that ash's crowing glory is not already making me want to do just that.
p.s. thanks to Accidental Fame Junkie for pointing me to this atrocity.

the longer you're married, the more you look alike

i've heard of the question "guess who wears the pants in the family?" but this one begs a different but similar question: "guess who wears the bangles in the family?"
i don't know what's scarier: pallavi joshi carrying her pants in her hands (just in case any further clarification was needed) or the drippy salt and pepper 'stache-only look that hubby vivek agnihotri seems to believe is the height of machismo along with the unmistakably studly four buttons popped open by the paunch ensemble.
pallavi, we loved you in antakshari...wait a minute, no we didn't. you were really annoying in that. let's try again. pallavi, we loved you in...ummm...give me a minute...suraj ka satvan ghoda. but you need to know that you've long outlived that halo. and what you do on tv these days is not enough to distinguish you like before from the hordes of kkkk...muttering starlets. more importantly, it's not enough to distinguish you from vivek, the rate at which you two seem to be exchanging genes and pants.

the salvation of hair-rithik

apparently hrithik is now past his krrish shooting days and is able to go back to his drool-worthy hunk self safely. perhaps he can now focus on getting his beautiful wife the right accessories. what suzanne's holding right now looks like a a golden hundi with the lid at the bottom having fallen off somewhere. gold is always a great accessory, but suzanne, when you're glowing naturally like you are, you don't want a tacky kiddy bank ruining your ensemble. hrithik, now that the haircut is out of the way, maybe you can take her shopping?

research reveals bad sibling fashion gene

aashish chowdhry (whoever he is): "it's okay, sohail. just because your nutty brother salman has a bare chest or kooky shirt only policy, it doesn't mean you have to paint your own dragons onto a tacky shirt. pull yourself together man! he's just your brother, not your fashion role model!"

sohail: "i, proud to wear tacky shirts!"

more UUFO: desi aliens from 3rd rock from the sun

how can you tell these are aliens? let's take them individually, from l to r:
notice how the younger guy alien is sucking his stomach in so hard it might just come flying out of his behind. he doesn't know that it's okay to let it hang, i guess.
the older guy alien clearly forgot that if you don't adjust your bald-head wig properly, the absence of anything underneath shows up rather obviously.
woman alien #1: the blinding blue jacket might function well as a reflector on the sun, but down here on earth, all it reflects is a deer-caught-in-the-headlights dumb gaze and the photographer's flash in her midriff.
as for woman alien #2, it looks like she was in the middle of putting on some more foundation (mostly on her forehead) and the camera caught her off guard. oh, and in the process, her 30-lb hand baggage slipped from her firm grasp.

uufo: unknown unfashionable objects

what's wrong with this picture? let me count the ways. first, the...umm...guy. (1) badly-dyed blonde hair out of a bottle. (2) second-hand prison jacket, complete with serial number. (3) wrinkled, still wet-between-the-pockets pants. (4) some kind of a wannabe cool t-shirt underneath. and now onto the, let's just say, the other person in the picture. actually i will just point out one thing with her. i do believe it's a her. what warped sense of humor suggested it's fashionable to put a fat black belt on a peasant skirt? which, somebody please tell her that peasant skirts are so 2005.
oh btw, i have no clue who these two cartoons are. if you do, please don't tell me.

behold, the zorabian illusion!

it's a gigantic lava lamp! it's a gigantic polka dot sari! it's perizaad zorabian! it's perizaad trying to turn into a gigantic polka dotted lava lamp optical illusion! at least, i hope that's the idea she had in her head when she came out in public dressed in this hallucination. if not, she needs to watch bollywood calling again for a much-needed fashion reality check. balls! more balls!

of blinding diyas

i'm pretty sure that even kathakali dancers don't wear such colorful lungis off-stage. for diya mirza however, the usual rules don't seem to apply. then again, maybe she is trying to be a kathakali dancer, and that's her mask bulging in her lungi-bag. so i'll even quiety ignore the flourescent human-saffron flower. maybe i just don't understand fashion anymore. maybe it's just me. maybe sallu will keep his shirt on in every movie from now on. maybe hrithik will cut his hair tomorrow. maybe bappi lahiri will lose weight this year. maybe pigs will fly.

silver foot in mouth

priyanka's looking cute as a button. and our own sassy kareena doesn't seem too shabby either. until you look down at her...POINTY SILVER STILETTO BOOTS!! and you know where she got them from? apparently her uncle rishi kapoor stole'em from mithun right after disco dancer. now that would explain why poor mithunda has never had a hit since. and it also goes a loooooong way in explaining bebo's couture i.q.

beauty and the beast

tacky and cliched as that title is, nothing fits this better. i don't know who the lady is, but her smile is probably the only thing radiant enough to be visible in a room where vinod kambli's jhatang shirt overwhelms all else. exploding sea urchins collide with blobs of red ink trying to mate with minding-their-own-business blue flowers. flowers? ink blobs? sea urchins? somebody please tell kambli that he's on a sticky wicket here. he can probably still wield a mean bat, but that fashion sense of his is hardly going to bowl the maidens over.

like daughter, like mother

when it came to choosing between hema malini and esha deol, it's always been a no-contest. until now. it looks like hema malini ran into a zebra. who was then split into two by a leopard. dyed in blue. and all this happened while she was--and still is--sleep-walking. why, oh why, must all our beloved ones bring on such hallucinations from time to time?

adam who?

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome adam bedi. adam who? bedi, as in kabir bedi. yes, the same kabir (of "peecha karo" fame from 007's octopussy) who has also fathered pooja bedi, although she probably owes thanks to her mother's peerless combination of sass, charisma and umm...natural gifts. bereft of such luck, adam has resorted to some other tactics to vie for attention. like a little shoe polish on his chin. an oh-so-1940's-hot tarzan haircut. loose, shiny, polyester-ly silk purple-pink shirt over tight black pants. oh, and a ghost hand on his shoulder (i couldn't resist that...that last thing is a result of my cropping). in any case, now that you have feasted your eyes, it's time to move on. what? you're still reeling from the shock?

shetty meets govinda by way of quilting club

what on earth is aditya pancholi wearing? and how does he even think it's fit for public consumption? and while we're at it, what's with the extreme depilation? his billiard ball imitation seems to have been undertaken by means of a laser. notice the flared nostrils and the still blistering upper lip? it looks highly painful. but at least it's taking some attention off his rags-to-ridiculous shirt that even govinda would have discarded before his neta days. and further, as continuing proof that clothes no longer come with pockets, aditya totes his cell phone as his ostensible on-the-go wrist flexer. tch tch.

why singers are behind the scenes

and the award for best dressed male goes to: subhash ghai.
what? you thought sonu nigam would get it? for that size B figure hugging, low and curvy shirt? or for that ugly wrist band that might also be a watch on which he probably doesn't know how to tell time? perhaps you were thinking of his all-denim pseudo-chaps? which clearly have at least four front pockets, each of which could easily fit his not too bulky but annoyingly hand-clutched cell phone? then again, there's hardly any breathing room visible in those jeans even for...well, you know what i'm talking about.
oh, who are we kidding about sonu nigam knowing anything about fashion? you know, what they say about children is true for playback singers too. in exactly the opposite way. they should only be heard, and not seen.

spotted disaster

dear celina,
yes, it looks as awful from behind as you might imagine. no, the leopard is not coming back to life and biting your behind, but i wish it could. and for heaven's sake, what is with that whip around your back? if you don't watch out, they'll tie a goat around a tree and try to bait and trap that leopard wrapped around you. not that that's not a good idea. at least the public would be rid of a menace. oh, and i'm not talking about the leopard either.
yours sincerely.

dracula's bride

what. was. amisha. thinking?
that the count of translyvania would step out of his coffin and give her the kiss of death? (that would have been merciful for us.) that painting herself as a pantomime is a good party face? that somehow her lips are better than angelina jolie's? maybe she should have kept her hair dyed blonde. at least that would have taken the attention off her face. which, right now, looks like a freshly molded plastic doll with crayons for make-up. overdosed on botox.
if only that uncle, i mean boyfriend, of hers were in the vicinity. again, he would have eased the pain by turning the cameras towards his wrinkles.
oh, where is dracula when you need him?

now you see her, now you don't

i bet you didn't recognize mandira bedi in her camouflage ensemble. oh wait, you can see her face. darn! somebody should have told her to lower that scuba-diving mask onto her eyes and not just keep them perched on her head. then we would have been spared this haunting vision.

"misfit: when miss india knows no fashion"

neha dhupia, the 2002 miss india and aspiring starlet (nickname "chhotu") has featured in some forgettable flops such as "rakht: what if you can see the future," "miss india: the mystery," "qayamat: city under threat," "kya kool hai hum: no, not me, the others," and "garam masala: it needs a little ajwain" (source: imdb.com, self). none of those apparently did anything to her presence on the popularity charts or her fashion i.q. stilletto boots? with too-short tights? over a gauze kaftan? showing off a sports bra? come, neha, even you can do better than this.

bobby, oh bobby!

granted his brother has cornered the "can't dance for nuts, can bash up whole armies single-handedly, and all this without acting" title for keeps. but does that mean bobby needs to go to the other extreme from macho? a pink shirt with folded half-sleeves and double breast pockets? slicked-back hair that's about to slide off his head? a come-hither look that would make silk smita envious? and i will not even mention the curvy eyebrows...oh, i just did. come, bobby, even you can do without it. why, you've had so many noticeable movies lately, like....umm...give me a minute....umm...you know what? you can look it up on imdb.com

blasts from the past

i doubt highly if varsha usgaonkar ever laid claim to be a fashion maven. but even by her low standards, this ensemble has tacky written all over it. frilly lace blouse? high v-neck? oversized shades slung from tacky high v-neck frilly lace blouse? and what is that thing in her hand? it looks the size of your average international check-in baggage. surely she doesn't think that is a purse? dear varsha, please crawl back into whatever piece of woodwork you just came out of.

nagma's certainly looking better (read "slimmer") than she used to look in her hey-days (read "when she's used to be roly-poly and rolling around in the hay" days). but then, there was only one direction her body could go: down. her fashion sense though, seems to have stayed where it was then (we'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she does possess sense, fashion or otherwise).
fashion faux pas #1: nobody wears a knotted blouse these days. they don't even wear a knotted shirt, unless of course they're manisha koirala on one of her "i want to be frumpy" days.
fashion faux pas #2: once knotted, the only reason you'd try to hide behind a gi-normous shawl-pretending-to-be-scarf is if you have something to hide. i will refrain from commenting on things rotund.
fashion faux pas #3: the worst accessory of them all: a tired half-smile.
but you know what, compared to sheeba (read on below), nagma might as well have stepped out of the haute-est couture houses in the world.

looks like sheeba mistook fishin' for fashion. the fishing net draped over her torso apart, notice the fish scales on her purse. and surely those are fish eyes on her earrings? looks like there's one piece of fashion advice someone forgot to give her: wear this outfit if you must, but don't go fishin' for compliments in it.

anil se darna zaroori hai

of late, anil kapoor has been showing off some funky new avatars (in chocolate, my wife's murder, musafir, etc). but i didn't think his "i just woke up after a night of revelry and i didn't brush, shave, or comb my hair; and i put on several of my daughter's shirts and her shades" look was intended for the public. i mean, the only logic i can see to his look is that he was trying to match the hair color of the guy behind him. dear anil, we had forgotten that you were all of 47 years old. until now. please don't give us any more reminders of it.

hrithik: the horror continues

daboo ratnani (the guy whose shoulder hrithik has his arm around, the fashion photographer) must be thanking his stars (no pun intended) that he shot hrithik (with a camera, darling) before rahu and ketu entered into his gruh and warped his fashion sense. hrithik himself now has to resort to pointing to himself and trying to convince people that it really is him. but not even a monkey cap can hide his oiled locks now. as for prescrption glasses on a thread, dear hrithik, they belong on 20th century fashion-challenged social misfits. which, if that's who you think you are, please send out a memo officially letting us know about the same.
yours sincerely.

still no lakshya in sight

ladies and gentlemen, presenting the hottest new trend in guy's couture: lace banians. couple them with a parachute-oiled and slicked back mullet, unkempt beard and jeans that are neither baggy nor form-fitting, and voila! you have hrithik still stumping you in trying to figure where exactly he's going with his life.

chameli-eon?

is bebo trying to blend into the background? that tired old bedsheet goes a long way towards doing that, but honey, that in combination with your sucked-in face stand out like a dried-out carrot against a sack o'potatoes. and while we're on that, what's with the mirror-work on your jeans? and for heaven's sake, you're surely carrying a purse? so put that bulky remote control (oh is that your phone?) into it! and if you're into accessories, i think you can do far better than grab someone's chainlink fence and wrap it around that bedsheet.

separated at birth?

the proof, they say, lies in the pudding. in this case, it's evident in the number of puddings, pies and other assorted high-caloric foods that bappi lahiri and adnan sami have consumed since parting at birth. it's evident in the number (approximately 14 each at last count) and size (approximately equal to the land mass occupied by sri lanka) of their chins. it's evident in the size of their stubby fingers (approximately the size of a baby's foot). there is one way though to tell these identical twins apart: bappi sports more gold on his body than is mined every year in kinshasa.

and then...

and then again, she can deign to look as divine as this.

ash-horror-ya rai

was this before she had a fashion consultant, do you think? or was this with an eye to the future, to make sure i had enough fodder here? whatever the reason, it seems to me that she must have been known then as "eyesore ya" rai.

curtain call

is jackie shroff taking hints from scarlett o'hara? if he actually cut and made sleeves from his curtains, that's commendable. however, it's still inexcusable that he's wearing a curtain-turned-bathrobe over white sheets coupled with a black pyjama from 1985. for a wedding, no less. then again, this was for fardeen's wedding. enough said.

unlike mother, don't like daughter

yes, purple is a nice color, especially in a sari. no, purple is not a nice color, especially on your face, especially when it clearly demarcates where the make-up ends, and where some good-looking skin begins. and no, having blonde streaks does not cover it up. nor does the fact that you do have some good-looking skin underneath the crayola.
esha, even if you can't act, at least do justice to your parents' looks, will you?

who took away the no entry sign?

on his wedding day, fardeen khan is just:
(a) constipated
(b) petrified
(c) itching to get out his violet satin teletubby sack
(d) didn't have time to visit the barber
(e) all of the above

don't they have a dress code for weddings? at least for the groom? who took the no entry sign away? did natasha know before hand this is how he was going to look on d-day?
questions, questions, questions.

exactly what is his lakshya?

preface: this is what hrithik wore to fardeen's wedding.
maybe that is sufficient excuse for the inelegance of his clothes. but what is the reason for his ape-imitation? somebody tell him tarzan has been remade umpteen times and nobody's asking him to audition for it now.
it can't be his wife. suzanne's looking quite radiant if a little puffy. She's even successfully -- and more to the point, elegantly -- hiding her bump. i will, for the moment, ignore her cutting up elmo the purple dinosaur to make a purse. but what reason does dear hrithik have for the "i'm grumpy and i want to throw a tantrum" look? oh, and you know what, i count six pockets on him--two on his jacket, and four on his jeans--is that not enough space to put that annoying cell phone away from sight? why does every tom, dick and hrithik have to flaunt it? since when did it become a fashion accessory?

love, actually

i was initially only going to comment on the necklessness of the couldn't-have-been-more-wrongly-named "boney" kapoor. but his (inexplicable but still his) wife's gorgeous looks, and his own not-too-shabby sartorial style make me bite my tongue just this once. not only is sridevi looking stunning, but that look of love she's bestowing on boney once again speaks to the mysterious ways in which love, actually, works.
okay, before i go too gooey, i'm outta here with this parting advice for boney: maybe you can find something to cover that expanded pelican's gullet protruding between your collar and your chin? because, frankly, attractive it is not (hint: turtleneck).

the myth: mallika's face

there's something vaguely familiar behind those gigantic black barricades. there are some faint outlines of a chin, some cheekbones...oh wait, it's a face! and it's mallika's face too!! i guess you never notice that she does have a face too, because of...well, you know what i mean. it's like, umm...it's like bappi lahiri's neck. there are reports that he actually does have one, but you can never see it underneath the 4-5 (or whatever the current number of) chins he sports.

one for posterity

no words needed. one to cherish.

wedding day tip: avoid eye shadow

i've heard of dark circles under the eyes. i've heard of hectic wedding days. but i've never heard of, or seen, till now dark circles under the eyes that cast a shadow all the way below the waist. on a wedding day. but zayed on his wedding day seems to be living (if quite sleepy and hungover) proof of this. oh, and that razor and barber, could someone send them over to zayed's place after they're done with jackie shroff?

phir hairy pheri

razor (n.): a sharp blade-like instrument, typically used to cut and eliminate unkempt facial hair, especially when unsuitable to gentlemen's faces. available everywhere in manual and electric models.
barber (n.): person who wields a razor to good effect for facially-fashion-challenged gentlemen, for a very affordable fee. available everywhere.
jackie shroff (proper n.): name of person who seems to be unaware of razor or barber.

zebra crossing with paanwalla and uncle

seriously, what is wrong with amisha? first she was spotted with blonde hair that looked more fake than a botox-enabled smile. now she wants to pretend that dressing up as a zebra is high fashion. Standing next to a button-popping mithun (notice his waist) looking like something the cat just dragged in is not redemption enough. As for the salt-and-pepper uncle standing next to the past-sell-by-date disco dancer, it turns out that's amisha's boyfriend. I know women have this thing for older men, but there must be younger specimen available out there surely?

neither krisna nor superman

it's obvious why he can't be the former. but i would think vivek oberoi has seen enough movies and / or read enough comics to know superman doesn't have brown hair from a bottle. or wear jeans over a t-shirt. or not wear red underwear over his pants. or forget he's wearing glasses while looking stupid in streaky brown hair with a sports jacket over a superman t-shirt paired with tired looking jeans, and holding hands with another guy. who--and i'm going to scream at the next picture that i see this in--like every freakin' celebrity in bollywood is holding a cellphone in hand. i mean, did they suddenly stop making pockets? do you not have the time to put it there and take it back out when you get a call? rajiv rai redeems himself slightly by going with the smarter, if less attractive, option of having no hair instead of having it look like burnt seaweed.

bappi unplugged

the man who sang pyaaaaaaar chahiye mujhe jeene ke liye apparently has been indulging in a little more than love methinks. those love handles certainly didn't grow on love. but seriously, i'm happy to see the king of disco and all unoriginal hindi music is alive and well. and given this picture, it's a miracle that he is. but you know what, all is forgiven for the person who gave us the one and only disco dancer. except maybe a tight-fitting t-shirt. (then again, can anything fit him loosely?) then again, maybe it's thanks to the t-shirt that we're spared the sight of chins #3 and #4. also, can someone please ask him to stop pretending he's in a toothpaste ad?
all joking apart, this vision is going to haunt you many a night, isn't it? :-)

class shows

a few days back we saw the inimitable ms. azmi in a not very flattering light. if i rubbed some of her fans the wrong way with that post, here's the shabana i believe we're used to seeing. there is a reason why she's above most mortals in bollywood. and the look in her eyes says as much. "you're privileged to photograph me." whereas mandira bedi seems to be avoiding looking at the camera in the hope that nobody will see the saffron robe pretending to be a sari, or the handle of the bag from the vegetable mandi around her neck. oh wait, is that part of her blouse?! as for rageshwari, let's just ignore her, shall we?

until they make replaceable heads...

i have no idea who this is, but i have an excellent idea for what she should not be: visible in public like that. i swear her caked-up face seems to have been screwed on to the backless-choli rest of her that even more clearly demarcates where the mud-cake ends and where real skin begins. it would have helped immensely if somebody showed her this picture before she ventured out to scare people, but i guess you can't have your cake on your face and see it yourself too.

desi-perate housewives

parameshwar godrej, i always knew, never had an ounce of fashion sense in her. but i would have thought the diva of trashy literature would do better than to bare her arms and then sport an amulet and a tattoo on it. the only redeeming feature of this trio is shabana, but this sideways pose with that camel-like look on her face accentuated by her cropped hair does not flatter her at all. makes me wonder where these ladies are going to land a few years from now when no amount of botox can help.