Business Models

THIS has to be one of the most earnest websites we’ve seen in very long. While most bloggers are happy to dish out dope provided by PR people,here are two sincere girls who tell you how to do it. Littleredtote.com is a beauty-based website that’s “100 per cent owned and run by us”,echo Raghuraman and Xavier. They have no ghost writers,they promise.

The website is a fun mix of hair,skin and make-up tips,trends,events and an interactive how-to guide. It went live on January 12,2013, and in its first month alone,has earned 1,10,000 hits.

“Models have brand value and we wanted to build on that,” says Raghuraman,quite like the smart-talking advertising wizard she totally isn’t. “There is a huge market for correct information given by the right kind of people,” Xavier adds. “With our practical knowledge gathered over the years,we felt it best to tackle the beauty industry and share our information.” Xavier has also been an interior and furniture designer based out of Delhi for the past three years. “But I prioritise and stick to a schedule,” says the former face of Revlon,Sunsilk,Westside,Tetley Tea,­Samsung and Thums Up.

The two have been friends since their salad days as young models. “We’re in the same mind-space,we are very similar people,” Raghuraman says. Littleredtote.com was Raghuraman’s cri de coeur and she spoke to Fleur about it a year ago. It took that long for the idea to go live on the internet but the efforts are there to see. The two 30-somethings are now talking to retail brands for tie-ups and may or may not delve into fashion. But the important thing,they say,is they’re still working within the fashion industry itself.

Choreography or styling would have been a natural progression too. But Raghuraman,who has modeled for Pond’s,Tanishq and almost every designer in this country,sagely says,“The entire world is going online. Even magazines are shutting down because everything is online.”

The uber models are clear this isn’t their retirement plan,and they aren’t planning to hang up their high heels anytime soon. This is more like a long-term business plan.

DIANDRA SOARES

SHE was 15 when she went bald and made it to the cover of a fashion magazine. A few years later,she tongued a fellow model on the runway. Eyeball-grabbing is second skin to Diandra Soares,so imagine our shock when the bad-girl-on-the-ramp turns into a domestic goddess. Soares’s desserts are the talk of everyone who’s had a spoonful.

“Last year,my sister had come down from Australia and brought me this amazing cookbook. I was on a two-year sabbatical from modelling,and started baking a year ago,” she rasps over the phone from Goa,where she was bridesmaid at model Carol Gracias’s wedding. “I couldn’t stop baking. Suddenly my house was filled with so much dessert,I had to give them out as tasters.”

The oohs and aahs that ensued made her bake some more,and take some orders too. But when a Bandra restaurant Or-G offered a steady display,she knew she was in it for good. “I have an offer to be the dessert chef in a restaurant’s kitchen,but I’m still taking baby steps,” says Soares. Plus there’s a new TV show,a travel-adventure daredevil act called Life Mein Ek Baar,on Fox Traveller. Guess we will have to wait for her chocolate fondant with crème anglaise.

Joey Matthew

SHE has been modelling for decades and is a face that’s muse to several style-smiths. But it’s only when Joey Matthew started a cooking show on the tube did she realise the power of television. “People began to come up to me at airports and movie theatres,like they never did before,” says the uber model.

Recognition on the street became redemption for her. “I started cooking out of necessity when I came from Kerala to Delhi to be a model,” she says. “It was for survival with my mum giving me recipes over the phone.”

She began to love it,as did her friends. “Two TV producers had come over for dinner,they were friends of two of my guests,choreographers Apu and Tanya. My friends were used to five-course meals at my home,but these guys were blown over. They asked if they could come back and shoot me in my living room. They did and then took it to NDTV Good Times. Before I knew it,I had my own show,” she says matter-of-factly.

For a model who has lived and worked in London and Milan,travelling was an excuse to pick up cooking styles. “I went crazy cooking in London,I just loved it. I trained with a chef from Cordon Bleu. Milan was great too,” she recalls.

Matthew says the more she cooked,the further it took her away from the runway. “I was done with modelling,I even began to look bored. Younger people had started coming in and I couldn’t understand their jokes,” she says with a laugh. These days,she only wears the war-paint for friends who insist (and there are many).

Matthew realised she was becoming completely detached from fashion and was happiest when she was in an apron and cooking. “Modelling and cooking are so diverse,when you are a model,food is considered contraband,” she laughs.

WALUSCHA ROBINSON

IF there is such a thing as having your cake and eating it too,Waluscha Robinson is living proof of it. She burst onto the modelling scene as a 16-year-old novice when she was discovered by veteran fashion designer and fellow Goan Wendell Rodricks. But within a few years,she was swept away into marriage to model and choreographer Marc Robinson. At 20,she had her first child. By 25,she had three.

“But the kids grow up so quickly and get busy with their own lives,” says the mother to Chanel,10,Brooklyn,8,and Sienna,5. “Now that I’ve done enough of being mommy,I’ve got some time to myself.” At 30,with her best years ahead of her,Waluscha learned professional make-up from a renowned artist in Mumbai. “It just happened one fine day that I decided to do something that still connected me to the fashion industry. I am a typically impulsive Sagittarian,and that’s all it took.”

Today,she’s ready to do up faces,style and groom models. She’s also done the portfolios of Alecia Raut,Sucheta Sharma and Ankita Mohapatra. “But what I’d really like to focus on is bridal make-up. To be able to transform someone for just a day is very satisfying.”

Make-up,she says,is not about being overdone,but about bringing out your best features. Waluscha’s go-to make-up tip is mascara,and perfectly groomed eyebrows. Her face once sold Pepsi along with Shah Rukh Khan. Now it’s enough to sell her craft.

SHEETAL MALLAR

Supermodel Sheetal Mallar took up photography as a hobby but so superlative were her pictures she turned it into a profession three years ago. “I’ve always liked the visual language of photography,” she says. “I was looking to express myself creatively and photography just happened.”

Mallar has shot visuals for Vogue India,Elle,Grazia,Conde Nast Traveller,Motherland magazines as well as the Blender’s Pride campaign. “I enjoy telling stories,so I shoot a lot of photo essays,” she adds.

At one time,Mallar,along with Mehr Jesia and Madhu Sapre,formed the Supermodel Trinity of the Indian runways. While Jesia and Sapre have retired to family life,Mallar still enjoys a turn on the ramp. “I’m hardly modelling anymore,” she insists,even though she was the most remarkable at the recent shows of Sabyasachi and Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla. “Modelling is so short-lived,an alternative career is natural,” she says,although she’s been facing the camera for almost two decades now. “I started so young,but the thing is I am really happy to find something I enjoy doing.”

Mallar was studying in Mumbai’s Sydenham College when she was discovered by the late legend Gautam Rajadhyaksha,who chose her for a Danabhai Jewellers campaign. She later went on to model for McDowell’s,Motorola,Tanishq,Tata Indigo and became the face of Maybelline in India. She still is a favourite muse to several top designers,and is affectionately called “liquid chocolate” on the ramp.

Mallar has been wooed by Shoojit Sircar to play the lead role in a political thriller opposite John Abraham. A film debut at 38 is avant-garde,but it is hard to keep a good woman down.