Now and forever

For a supermodel retrospective, Vogue India digs into the archives of the industry’s greatest moments. AKANKSHA KAMATH and SAMAR RAJPUT hit rewind on Indian fashion’s history with the world

ASHLEY, AVANTI, AMRIT, Saffron, Radhika, Bhumika, Deepti. While these names may form the collective consciousness of our recent fashion history and our global modelling transplants to the world, the road to glory has been a long and winding one. All-pervasive social media and quick minutes of marketing on phone screens may give these names top-shelf status in our minds, but it would be ignorant to not recall and remember the ones that created the blueprint for Indians on the global fashion map today.

Anjali Mendes, Kirat Young, Marielou Phillips, Ujjwala Raut, Lakshmi Menon. It was a time of unadulterated fashion, parties, champagne and designer-muse relationships that stood the fraying strands of time. From the 1970s until the mid 2000s these women, all legs and high cheekbones, reigned supreme on international runways. Their attitudes and gaits made clothes look covetable and made their lives seem unattainable. The fact that they were Indian became a postscript on a show note.

It all started in 1971. Before Parisian ramps had seen women of colour—before Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell—a dark, six-foot-one-inch-tall sari-clad model waited in French designer Pierre Cardin’s salon for eight hours. Mendes had bought a one-way ticket to Paris with modelling money she made back home in Mumbai. She wanted nothing more than to be an international model. Instantly, she was granted a role as Pierre Cardin’s house model and the designer cut his couture collection on her for 20 years. Colour was hardly a question.