Roving Eye

Costume chic

Manish Malhotra held a special preview of Mast, the new Ram Gopal Verma film starring Urmila Matondkar. The clothes were done by Manish which is why he decided to invite the city8217;s more fashionable crowd for a special viewing of the film, on Wednesday. Seen there were Sangeeta Chopra, Tarun Raghavan, shoe designer Rina Shah and ELLE8217;s Nirja Shah. Though the film was not so impressive, Urmila looked fantastic. Manish gave her a different look for every scene and even dressed her up as a cowgirl in one song. He used every trick in the book from coloured hair mascara to short wigs to make sure every time Urmila was on screen, you could not take your eyes off her. And his use of sheer fabrics just made his muse ooze sex appeal.

Melange8217;s medley

The next day Poonam8217;s neighbour on Altamount Road, Sangeeta Kathiwada held a show for five of her designers, at Melange. Dressed in one of Anuradaha Vakil8217;s Bandhani saris, Sangeeta was the perfect model for her designer.Besides Anuradha8217;s innovative Bandhani work, there was Nahid Merchant8217;s Indian and fusion wear done in interesting shades of blue, Meera Mahadevia8217;s bags her silk and tussar bags with wood and bead handles would dress up any outfit and Gayarti Ruia8217;s Indo-West range. Gayatri8217;s collection was much the same as last year relying heavily on thread embroidery. And Sangeeta did not ignore the men as also on display was Kishore Ramani8217;s Indian wear. As always there was an interesting spread of hors d8217;oeuvres including humus and falafel to be washed down by iced tea.

Gem of a show

The next night pretty much the same crowd turned up for Poonam Soni8217;s jewellery show held at the President Hotel. Choreographed by Achla Sachdev, Poonam is opening a new shop in Jewel Inn on Altamount Road. This will be her second store in the city, and will stock fun and fashionable jewellery. The show showed all of Poonam8217;s jewellery from her first ever collection, The Egyptian Line8217; to her more recent Glass amp; Gold8217;. Hershow ended with her Millennium8217; collection.

To offset the jewellery, the models wore clothes specially designed by Essence and Maneka Mulchandani. Simple creations, they complimented Poonam8217;s designs perfectly. As did models Shyla Lopez, Sheetal Malhar and Bipasha Basu.

Fiery opening

With the opening of Fire amp; Ice, the dance club, it seems that Phoenix Mills is all set to usher Mumbai in to the next millennium. Promoted by Rajiv Shah, Niraj Rungta, Vishal Shetty and Ketan Kadam, the opening bash of the club was an evening to remember. Shah Rukh made one of his rare public appearances, along with Kamal Hassan and Bharat Shah, for the inauguration. Sprawled over 6,000 sqf, with a large wooden dance floor and a staircase leading to the bar, the idea is quot;to provide ample space for guestsquot;. The cover charge of Rs 600 may be on the high side, but it is slapped on not for nothing. Finally, here8217;s a club that8217;s concerned about noise pollution. The hi-tech lights and the audio levels will synchronisewith the number of people present, which means, the lesser the number, the lesser the decibel level. The highlight of the evening, of course, apart from the scintillating cocktails that flowed, was Shah Rukh8217;s opening jig with Malaika Arora, to what else but Chaiyya Chaiyya8217;. The crowd was all eyes. A few other faces were seen as well, including the inimitable Javed Jaffrey.

Society blitz

One lady who is a style icon in her own right is Parmeshwar Godrej. If she wears an Abu-Sandeep then everyone wants one. And when she wears a Herve Leger then that becomes the new must-have among the city8217;s fashionable crowd. Friday was one day when her style was exhibited to its best advantage. In the morning she started her day by opening and judging the Society exhibition. This annual show is a paradise for lovers of handicrafts where over a 100 stalls exhibit a wide array of goodies from wrought iron candle stands to diyas. Parmeshwar herself seemed very encouraged by the show and even picked up some silverhandbags. quot;It is great to see so many young people with talent. And exposure with an event like this exhibition will only help them get on the right track,quot; said the industrialist wife who is also an interior designer. After she visited every stall at the show she rushed home to get ready for another event. Her elegant pink trouser suit was replaced by an orange sari for the evening 8212; where she and her husband, Adi, were hosting the launch of Cyrus Merchant8217;s book Forever the Faith. Incidentally, Pameshwar met Cyrus while he was working for Society8217;s sister publication Stardust. Attending the launch were some the city8217;s best known faces. Officially launching the book were Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. Also spotted there that night were Tina and Anil Ambani, Queenie Dhody, Kavita Khanna, Czaee Shah, Poonam Dhillion, Pamdini Kolhapure, Anuradha and Anand Mahindra and Nari Hira.

And finally8230;

It is always nice to see parents and children partying together. Last Sunday, Anil and ImtiazDharkar were seen with daughter Ayesha having a good time at the Jamp;B Karaoke night held at not just Jazz By The Bay. This family spent most the evening together chatting with each other. Obviously, they have a great communication. No generation gap here.