In the Face of Fashion

Two words: Prabuddha Dasgupta. My newest creative crush comes courtesy of the April 2008 issue of Vogue India, picked up outside Colaba Causeway’s Leopold Café, because the goddess that is the Indian model Lakshmi Menon made me, beckoning from the front cover in her designer swimmers.

A Vogue, is a Vogue, is a Vogue. And Vogue India is filled with the same kind of yawn-inducing homogenous luxury junk you’ll find in any vague fashion tome. But then there’s Prabuddha Dasgupta, who is certainly not junk but a stunning photographer, and his often-muse, the cocoa-skinned Lakshmi who is so achingly, gorgeously different from the vapid cookie-cutter Bollywood dolly’s and beauty queens, you can’t stop staring.

Together with a clearly faboo stylist they effected 18 pages of mouth-watering visuals, which would have otherwise been a boringly self-indulgent – and mammoth – summer fashion and accessories spread.

Lakshmi instinctively understands how to fill a frame; Prabuddha just understands the whole shebang of contemporary sensuality; and oh okay, Vogue India gets an A for using them to exceptional effect even thought it was after L'Officiel India, and a generous B- for not being too vapid in their features section.

Visit: www.prabuddhadasgupta.com to discover his campaign for Hermes and his groundbreaking photography book, Urban featuring Indian women.

And look out for Lakshmi shot by Ines Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin for Givenchy.

GGG