Jatin Kochar
Design Credentials: NIL.
Design Record: NIL.
Constantly in-your-face courtesy fond father who owns fleet of refrigerated trucks and favourably disposed don’t-know-better newspaper supplement editors.
Claim to fame: eternal youth. Nay, teenage. Nineteen for six years. IN PRINT. Till he suddenly decided that song was played out and decided to turn 25.
Three hundred banners proclaimed the opening of two shops in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, next at Greater Kailash. Tacky shops, embarrassingly tacky clothes. Both closednow.
Seen periodically. Now cadging an entry to a fashion show he’s not invited to. Another time talking about a life, a nose, an undie, a trip no one barring one fashion editor wants to hearabout.
Industry feedback: Shunned by designers, clients who know better. Survives on fashion shows in upcountry Jalandhar,Bhopal. "For Gawds sake!" shudders a fashion choreographer when he’s mentioned, "write him off".
Vijay Arora
Design Credentials: NIL.
Design Record: NIL.
Modus Operandi: Crash into newspaper offices, claim to be "great friends" with on-leave page editor on the strength of a party handshake, con way into one-time fashion column authorship till you’re discovered. And discarded.
Wide-eyed wannabe. Hung around the fringes of fashion ("off off Broadway phenomenon, darling," bitched a NIFT-y) foryears. Armed with management degree from US, wife from Delhi’s prominent Jas Jewellers family and a thriving construction business, he gatecrashed into design. Tempted by visions of glamorous party invites, the face-on-front-page prospect.
Own face in own clothes plastered all over his office. Breathless with excitement at the sight of a pressman, a photolens. "I do my own modelling," he neighs. "Why spend on outsiders with an in-house model," hesmirks.
Low-profile wife. Low-quality clothes. Albeit with the occasional flash of quality embroidery. Nothing more, nothing less than anything you’d find in the average upmarket Karol Bagh showroom.
