What and Who Makes the Cut?

Fashion PR and fashion journalism. Do they interact in ways that the line of editorial control is often draped over? Does Indian fashion journalism have to be mostly innocuous?

In the mid-Nineties, Anita Roddick, owner of The Body Shop and angel of eco-friendly beauty, hired a powerful legal

team in Britain to weed out critical media stories about her

company. The fear of that legal onslaught made Vanity Fair kill

journalist Jon Entine's brilliant investigative piece on The Body Shop's unethical practices. Titled The Stranger Than Truth Story of The Body Shop, it was eventually published in Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print (2004) edited by David Wallis. Entine's story brought home the fact that lifestyle journalism wasn't just gloss; it could reveal the dark side of a top brand.

Few such stories appear in the Indian media. Here, lifestyle journalism switches between exaggerated hype and pliant reportage. Often, it is the stuff of press releases, "released" in lavish surroundings at wine-and-sushi press conferences; swayed by the promise of luxury gifts sent home; or on other occasions, seduced by a front-row seat at Milan Fashion Week or a trip to Los Angeles.

"PR rides on the W factor: wine, women and wannabes. Everything

seems fair in this game. Doctoring or fussing up a piece of news, creating events where none exist, writing columns for designers or the script of their interviews with journalists, fixing reviews and pacifying either side when required," says Anshu Khanna, founder of Delhi-based PR firm Goodword Communications.

Twelve to fifteen major PR firms operate in Delhi and Mumbai, the two cities soaked with "media events", and represent clients in lifestyle, décor, fashion, luxury and hospitality. To keep a restaurant, a designer, a luxury brand or an art gallery in the news, they manufacture what they call "innovative" strategies. Essentially, it is working out a marketing matrix that benefits all clients. So, a global luxury brand hosts an event with a fashion magazine; an art gallery owner with a fashion designer; a restaurateur with a painter. Booze and venue is sponsored as the sponsor invariably gets "coverage". Everyone goes back pleased and the media returns with a "story" — sold by the PR army as a "great" idea. There are people, says Khanna, so keen to be seen on Page 3 that they pay Rs 15,000 for a photo.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Little Vaara in a Bottle

Home Again

Actors don't get money, stars do: Manoj Bajpayee

Zanjeer would not have been made without Pran, says Salim Khan