(Un)Covered

Comment image 37


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L To R: Shveta Salve, Shilpa Agnihotri, Sanjeeda Sheikh

Major debate had ensued over the Vogue India August cover (if the cover was vogue-worthy or not)… On special request, here is the inside flap of the cover… so tell us now, is the cover after all ‘vogue-worthy’ or, not?

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L To R: Gauri Pradhan, Tina Parakh, Resshmi Ghosh, Gautami Kapoor

Since you all asked, here’s what we think:

Priyanka Says:
For me, the cover just doesn’t work. I do appreciate using these ladies on the cover but if the context was portraying them as the ‘influencers’ of style then they should have been portrayed in beautiful Indian clothes. Lets assume that maybe they thought by doing so, they’d be taking the stereotyped ‘tv-bahu’ image too far then they should have gone way over the top with ethnic clothes and done a kitschy-witty play on them with a larger than life set. Assuming, even that got shot down in one of those meetings, it is still beyond me why they’d use television sets as props. Thats just taking a short-cut and being unimaginative. The choice of clothes, accessories and styling of hair is amateur at its best.

Over using these soap actresses, I say why not? Bollywood actresses have long graced fashion mag covers and considering these soaps reach just as many people and almost every day make their presence felt, using them on the cover was a novel idea. If only it was done better.

Anyway, am tired of seeing actresses (of all mediums) on these covers, bring back the models already!

Payal Says:
Well, if Vogue considers them as influencers of style, they should picture them in “character” and not in Dolce/Hermes and Gauri & Nainika which most of them rarely wear anyways and rather use a mix of the other Indian-wear designers…

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37 Comments

  1. This is the face of Indian Television. We may not be the audience, but u cant deny the fact there is a huge mass following for these ladies……and in their own ways they are the trendsetters of today. in Priya Tanna’s own words,” they are the most powerful cultural influence on modern India” . Few of them are also the best dressed actors of the small screen. If u have gone thru the mag, this issue is all about today’s India. I applaud Vogue for this cover, for once giving us an unpredictable cover without one of the faces of fashion. This issue is a celebration of India and its Style, not fashion.

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  2. terrible, grotesque what twat did the shoot?!
    its not the models, a good photographer would have even made the tv dabbas look good.
    this cover has no thought, bad lighting, bad dressing.. everything which could go wrong HAS!

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  3. gautami kapor and shweta salve look amazing.
    coming to the issue at hand, i guess some (or most) readers here might not know them, but that does not mean they arent famous or hold no power today. Not only for the women in India, but for women all over the world who understand Hindi/Urdu, and watch these dramas, these ladies are a means of escape from their regular lives. Designer dresses are not only for models, but for the ordinary woman as well, and these women represent those ordinary ladies through their acting.

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  4. as far as the creative direction of the shoot is concernd, there could be more finesse i agree. the content is vogue-worthy, the direction of the content isnt.

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  5. “This issue is a celebration of India and its Style, not fashion.” last time i checked vogue was a fashion magazine?

    Its not that we want to see models.. but this magazine should showcase fashion influencers.. these ladies are not fashion influencers, their characters are.. if you get what i mean..

    anyhow.. gauri pradhan is such a beautiful woman.. and her styling makes her look old.. and reshmi gosh was a past miss india.. her styling makes her look old again!! me not digging the cover or the inside..

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  6. i agree, surbhi, that it is a fashion magazine, but these women represent fashion to domestic women, and that too on a daily basis. they are no less than bollywood actresses today.
    p&p, i wanna see what u have to say about this too.

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  7. @Surabhi: Couldn’t agree more.
    Plus, the whatever ‘fasihon’ influence these women have on audience is certainly not the kind in which these ladies are shot in. I mean, most of them wear only sarees on screen.
    If Vogue wanted to really really make this a beautiful cover, they might have taken pains to make sure the poses are beautiful rather than what Sanjeeda, Tina , Gauri – oh god, the whole lot are doing.. So uncomfortable and contrived….

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  8. Not the content, i have a problem with the photography itself. i think someone mentioned it earlier that it looked like an india today cover.. totally agree.. there is complete lack of imagination & creativity .. it really does not look like a fashion mag cover… it has nothing to do with models or real women.. the absolutely done-to-death idea of having stars perched on top of old tv sets.. yuck!

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  9. HA! no
    …are they really the most powerful influence on modern India? Because the only time I see anything about TV on the Indian News is when there is some reality show scandal (a la Jane Goody).
    Whatever they do, their stlyist and photographer are what are lacking. Really, it doesn’t matter who is on the cover, if they want to present them in a Vouge Fashion, they will look like Vouge. Priya Tanna is clearly not living up to Anna Wintour (or any of the other Vouge editors) because, reguardless of the content, if the image doesn’t match, none of it can. Fashion is a mainly visual feild after all.
    That being said, did anyone else notice that they all have the same hair -_-

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  10. In a nutshell…total lack of creativity and originality. vogue has a standard, and with this photoshoot we can see that lighting, dress quality, shooting set, “model” attitude are all so tacky….the latter is also important, the photographer should coax it out and bring out the symbiosis

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  11. @pdaervo- I did notice their hair, and also the horrible matchy shoes on all of them.. I ain’t arguing about what these women represent etc.. but to me, they’ve been styled really tacky – like extras in a Bollywood song who all look alike. are they supposed to be wearing couture?

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  12. I do like the clothes, wanna flip through vogu just to see who is wearing what .. I suspect a Shantanu Nikhil and a Gauri Nainika though!

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  13. neither but given a choice would go with the first one..gauri pradhan’s dress shud hv been on the cover..their poses and expressions are just plain lifeless…can’t believe they made those red Loubotins in the first pic look so much more ridiculous with the way Sanjeeda is posing in them…yet to see someone wear those Loubotins (side bow design) along with an appropriate dress …even Malaika arora cud not do justice to them.. I wish they came out in green…and they cud hav paired them with gauri pradhan’s white dress in the second pic…wot say???

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  14. Poor portly Priya Tanna should be the editor of VAGUE and not VOGUE-this cover is the perfect embodiment of everything thats wrong with the magazine and its editorial staff-unimaginative, unsophisticated and hopelessly pedestrian.Now is the Wintour of our discontent!

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  15. Why are these women on the cover of Vogue? How are they relevant to high fashion? If they represent fashion to the masses, and if that’s what Vogue wants to celebrate, then why style them in these outfits rather than the clothes they usually wear? They want to please both the Ekta Kapoor fan club as well as those that look upon them somehwt didainfully, and there’s a dichotomy that just isn’t working here. I mean, these are NOT the most stylish women on TV. Unless that’s what Vogue deems as being stylish.

    pdaervo – Haha, yes, the hair! Annoying, isn’t it? I mean, for the love of fashion, put a little effort into it!

    Overall, the shoot looks unnatural and contrived. Meh.

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  16. I would refain from comment about the photo shoot and how these women by wearing heavy sarees and embellished gowns to bed, empower the modern Indian woman! All I can say is, its not just this one cover.. Vogue has been consistently disappointing in the past few months.. The Preity Zinta cover or the one with Bipasha Basu, just didnt make themselves seem Vogue-worthy! Priyaaaa.. are you listening??

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  17. Vixen & pdaervo…you guys said it all. poor styling, bad photography and an utter lack of imagination. such step childly treatment for the desi version of vogue….tsk tsk.

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  18. i swear, the stylist and the photographer totally ruined the cover….as everyone else agrees. lol
    They’re beautiful ladies…yet you don’t see that on the cover.

    using them was a good idea…but hell, u may wanna make em look good too!

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  19. i have to say that i like the idea of using the television actresses on the cover. what i DON’T like..is everything else. the clothes are boring, accessories and stylilng need a major upgrade, the lighting sucks, the props and set are ridiculously unoriginal. the front cover is still tolerable in comparison, but i don’t even know what to say about the inside flap…reshmi and tina look PATHETIC and gauri and gautami have both looked better dressed on kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi sets..

    ugh.

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  20. well the poses n the 1st page is incredibly ungraceful..but the inner cover is better..i mean da photographers should have done a better job than this..anywa take Gauri Pradhan,she’s just incredibly beautiful..when she s out f TV n during day to day life her fashion sense has always been simply perfect..n in that white dress she looks beautiful..but they should have done a better job with the way the sets r when n da postures r concerened..anywa liked the new concept in vogue.but they should have done a better job..the actresses r beaustiful..specially gauri n reshmi..who r each a miss india finalist n is a former miss india..but the photographers have ruined the whole effect..

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  21. they all have the same hair length, hairstlye, same look – so expressionless.. i have nothing against these ladies – but this photoshoot does not work for me. This could be done much better.

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  22. Gauri Pradan & Reshmi Ghosh look so ugly along with Tina Parekh. Totally expresionless. Gautami Kapoor & Shilpa Saklani Agnihotri have carried themselves very well in the pic. Shilpa’s dress is awesome. Sanjeeda Sheikh look childish from the pose she is giving. Shweta Salve is so-so.

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  23. only guatami looks nice.. i am so disappointed in dress gauri pradhan is wearing..
    she looks so dull

    totally disappointed.. who did the STYLING??????

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  24. Both Gauri and Gautami are buds so i will say they look good, but it aint Gauri’s best pic, she is WAAAY prettier in real life, with lovely translucent complexion

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  25. Seriously, bring back the models!!
    The lady in green ( on top) is in a terrible pose..the rest look ok. The only one I know is Gauri and she doesnt look good here…

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  26. Television industry today lacks any creativity or class ,thanks to one lady – Ekta kapoor. Every time I see a desi soap I’m appaled at the garish clothes, non existant story and pathetic acting . who ever argues that masses love this kind of television please be reminded of the TV of the 80’s and 90’s – kitu gidwani as an air hostess , mandira bedi as shanti , malvika tiwari in kashish , or even rupali ganguli in mahabharath , kirron kher in kanyadaan or even kavitha kapoor in saans .
    Even here in the west cr** passed around as television but along side exist also shows like lost or greys anatomy which are classics. Till indian television cleanses itself of ekta kapoor and her clones there will be no credible characters or style icons.

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  27. If you look at the quality luxe covers, you can see that there is a rapport between the photographer and the model/s that brings about a certain look. It should startle, make you want to look twice as the model should have some dimension never seen before. This is a careless picture. Then there is the setting…Where is the creativity? Just boxes of the tubesets? You could have had special RGV so associated with the TV, or some kind of TV effect while taking the pics. And the model hairstyles…where did clean, sculpted, healthy, animated hairstyles disappear? This long attached hair look is so old…Loved Vidya Balan’s hair in KKonnection.If you wnt to keep it long, Sonam’s trimmed, clean, healthy hair comes to mind. And the vapid expressions on the models’ faces…positively depressing!

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  28. they all look silly….please put them in sarees…lets accept it..some people look good in traditional indian wear ala’ vidya balan……why push them into western wear?

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  29. WTF is up with Gauri’s hair….her natural hair is WAAAYYY prettier…she doesnt even need any styling…rather the styling ruined her natural beauty…this is not acceptable for a Vogue…THOROUGHLY bad styling…!

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  30. the INDIA issue – isn’t every issue supposed to be the “india issue”, produced for indians, because it’s VOGUE INDIA? yes of course, there are other ideas in there, but the audience will mostly be indian, right?

    semantics are clearly something bandana tewari doesn’t understand as editor of an international magazine.

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