Fashion unhinged

Many of the dresses are hard-edged and super-sculpted with a minimum of ruffles,faux leather,furs,frills or tassels. The colours are bold and the silhouettes twisted into draped little chemises,over-sized cotton parkas,kimono tops and flowing shifts.

One look at owner Ami Javeri,who’s wearing jeans and a cropped top teamed with a metallic,statement necklace,and it’s easy to understand the raison d’etre of the store. “I believe in mixing and matching,” says Javeri who returned to India two years ago after running a fashion store in New York. “So while the clothes might be simple,I always spruce them up with a lot of bold accessorising. And I love statement jewellery. I wouldn’t wear accessories if they weren’t statement.”

Accordingly,the accessories and shoes shelves looks like a part of a Halloween costume store lined with metallic chains from the rock-n-roll era,gothic snakeskin cuffs,lace scarves with corsages,collar necklaces,envelope clutches,leather wrist bands,lavishly studded belts and feather brooches.

“With the impending summer in mind,the clothes are comfortable and flowing with nothing too sticky or oppressive,” says Javeri. We did note a marked absence of the slinky slip-of-a-thing cocktail dresses and—thank god for this—the caged corset which did to your limbs what botox does to your face.

Javeri says she wanted her store to stock bling-free clothing with an emphasis on cut and style “on par with what you see on the runway available at high street prices”. Considering Creo’s clientele includes many bigwigs of society,like Reena Wadhwa,Raveena Tandon,Gul Panag,Lara Dutta,Mugdha Godse and Lisa Hayden,we’d say her philosophy’s working.