Black, not the movie, not the dress but the manicure. It’s risqué and shimmers and is the new

de rigueur fashion statement for the ladies who lunch. Check out Chanel’s new Black Satin

with its tiny silvery flecks to know the rage we are talking about

C is for Christian Dior going the Bollywood route. Using natty marketing and cottoning onto native sensibilities (however upper crust) Dior did an official placement of their clothes in India by using Preity Zinta as a clotheshorse in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Designer books. Make that Designer’s Book. Ritu Beri decided to write about her fashionable life, but the price tag to her autobiography titled Firefly — A Fairy Tale — read more like a horror story. At Rs 1 lakh, there has been understandably no report on how many copies were sold after client Akshay Kumar launched the tome

Exclusive wedding anniversaries bashes that entail carting family and friendloads to Maldives as one business magnate did recently. Another has swamped a London hotel

Frankfurt. You may be holidaying in Belfast but when it’s by invitation, nothing is more coveted than Frankfurt and its book fair, as testimony to being a socialite who also thinks. Javed Akhtar was there, so was Shobhaa De

Geek because that’s exactly what Paul Allen is. He is also the world’s richest bachelor with a quarter of Microsoft’s stock, a 413-ft yacht called Octopus that has two helicopters and a 60-ft submarine. At 53, the man is being wooed all right by India’s celeb circus

Hot bods and it’s not just Dhoom 2 we are talking about. Sculpted bodies from abroad have been ousting the bottom-heavy Indian variety and bagging prestigious assignments

Istanbul holiday and accompanying cruise. The only city in the world to straddle two continents — Europe and Asia — it’s no more a dusty backwater but rather a vast city of 10 million people and Turkey’s hottest tourist city. And for extra effect, you can call it by its historical name, Constantinople

Jet-setting on the Bombadier jet express. Mukesh Ambani (again, but then he is an Ambani) has ordered for one and others are following suit. Currently, there are more than 70 private jets in India and Bombadier that sold about 270 planes worldwide in 2005, has already sold four jets in Delhi and Mumbai since February this year. Cost: $47 million (roughly Rs 219 crore)

Kiss and yell. Mika Singh grabbed item girl Rakhee Sawant and smooched her at his birthday bash and everyone who was anyone in Mumbai’s chatter circle felt compelled to comment

Luxe and living by the Brand. Louis Vuitton, Prada and Chanel handbags; sunglasses by Bvlgari and Gucci; shoes by Sergio Rossi, Tod’s and Jimmy Choo are everyday chatter. Tag Heuer hosted an all-night party for big spenders in Goa where about “400 diamond-dripping, air-kissing Indians decked out in brands like Manolo Blahnik and Balenciaga sipped champagne and sampled canapés as they watched Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan play volleyball and emcee a bikini contest” as reported by TIME magazine

Marry go round organised by Sant Chatwal from Mumbai to Manhattan. The US-based hotelier did a chak de phatte with The Wedding of the Century between his playboy son and scion Vikram Chatwal I and model Priya Sachdev. In attendance, Bill Clinton, Lakshmi Mittal, HRH Prince Nikolas of Greece…

No comment. The favourite response of the team guarding Brangelina in Pune and Mumbai. Even if it was a much-forced one, considering that it came mainly from socialite Aarti Surendranath who is invariably dying to be quoted, clicked and commented upon. Real will power this

Opal and Oops. Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan was the toast of the country first with her How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life that had this amazing advance. Then came reports of plagiarism and it all came stumbling down

Partly gay is the new term for bisexuals, after Vikram Seth used the term while championing for a change in Indian laws on homosexuality. Now with Manvendra Singh Gohil, heir apparent to the kingdom of Rajpipla in Gujarat also declaring his gay status this year, time for many new words to be added to the common lexicon?

Question: Kaun Banega Crorepati? Sahi jawab, the chatterati is split into camps on this one

RWITC membership. Become a member of the Royal Western India Turf Club and every December you can put out the kitchen fires for a month. This year, contestants for the chairmanship, Vijay Mallya and Cyrus Poonawalla hosted some eight parties in five days in Mumbai to woo 1300-odd members with champagne, chocs, caviar and cigars

Service redefined as a platinum credit card holder. This includes concierge and concert tickets, “green lane” at banks and credit limits like Rs 6 lakh. Life in plastic, it’s fantastic

Time on your hands and it had better be a Patek Phillipe or a Rolex. Patek apparently is huge with Russians after President Putin bought one. Rolex has also opened a show room at New Delhi’s Shangri-La Hotel

Udaipur as a wedding destination because, you know, Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar are rumoured to be heading there in February. Devigarh palace, where the guests include David Beckham, Hugh Grant and Sir Elton John

Vertu’s new $90,000 handset that will feature tiny diamonds dotted all over, and a keypad that carries eight carats worth diamonds. The phone’s body will come from the finest platinum, underpinned with ruby bearings and equipped with a similar ceramic composition originally intended for the space shuttle. But no camera!

Wine throwing, after two socialites did it to each other at a party, it’s the hippest way of making a splash at a do

Xtra mile Mumbai’s high society pet owners are going it for their dogs who now feast on gourmet cuisine adapted to their individual tastes and home delivered by a private company that boasts 500 clients

Yadav as in Lalu Prasad Yadav who stumbled into high society by first addressing IIM-A students and then being invited by Harvard and Wharton Universities to lecture on the Railway turnaround

Zipper malfunction A whole new term introduced in the fashion syllabus after hooks snapped and zips came undone at the Lakme Fashion Week in March this year, leading to a strict vigil on the runway thereafter, sometimes by plainclothes policemen