Twin Troubles

I’m the first to snap someone’s head off when they start with ‘If this happened in the West’ but hey: If this happened in the West, someone’s head would surely roll. Or at least, an apology and explanation would be expected.

Vogue India’s Editor of seven years, Priya Tanna, tells me no one has called for her point of view. She also said that she didn’t want to comment on it. To be fair: can she have a defense? No. Elle India’s new Editor, Aishwarya Subramanyam, who was formerly Vogue India’s Deputy Editor, says, “It’s a mistake and mistakes do happen.”

My problem is simply that no one has asked for an explanation. My bigger problem is that no one has given an explanation, even without asking. One would surely owe that to one’s readers. Big publications obviously feel they can get away with it. And they do. This does throw some light on India’s fashion and journalism circles. We are all afraid of big-daddy publishers and magazines. We don’t want to take them on for fear of them not featuring us, our stories, or not inviting us to their glamorous parties.

Many fashion magazines in India are here before their time. India’s greatly speculated and much toasted luxury boom didn’t happen. Labels are growing slowly and with greater assurances. There are more magazines than luxury labels advertising to promote them, so it is a small and symbiotic network. However, the majority of the advertising comes from Indian jewellers or stores, yet they cannot openly promote them as it clashes with their international image and general snob value.

I have written for most of these, and I’m constantly bargained with for a fee that’s so small in the first place (I recently told one editor she wouldn’t want a discounted salary either so she shouldn’t expect it of me). Since they obviously aren’t rolling in much money, their snobbiness is probably a professional prerequisite. A fake-it-to-make-it survival kit.

Newspapers aren’t dipped in moral rectitude either. Paid news has afflicted most papers, save maybe two or three. And for those who aren’t paid — in puff or pastry — to write glossy features, it’s a losing battle. Last week, I received an email from a luxury label’s rep asking me to cover her fashion show. She wasn’t inviting me to watch the show, which was overseas, but offered to get her team to send me pictures. Then she wrote if I could use the label’s name in this column’s headline too. By then I had politely signed off. But can I blame her? No, because nobody’s accountable.

namratanow@gmail.com

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