MUMBAI: Music alone does not stimulate our party animals enough; style is the biggest turn-on today.
MTV India has figured this out right and made another attempt at digressing from its '100 per cent youth music' image in India. The channel has joined hands with Dupont Textiles and Interiors (DTI) to announce the Lycra MTV Style Awards.
(L to R) Alex Kuruvilla, Shobhaa De and Wendell Rodricks at the MTV-Dupont event
The awards will bestow 19 winners cross 13 categories, under the 'popular, technical and honors' subheads. Popular awards would go to the most stylish person in music, films, TV (male and female each), sports and music video, technical awards would include the most stylish person on the ramp (male and female), breakthrough designer, fashion photographer, fashion designer and Bollywood designer; while the honors awards would be conferred on a stylish politician, businessperson (male and female each) and a lifetime achievement award.
The awardees will be decided by a panel of experts including filmmaker Karan Johar, models Feroze Gujaral, Malaika Arora, Nafisa Ali, sports commentator Navjot Singh Siddhu, filmmaker Pooja Bhatt, designers Prasad Bidappa, Priya Paul and Wendell Rodricks. The panel will be chaired by noted columnist Shobhaa De.
Kuruvilla and Rodricks interact with the models MTV India managing director Alex Kuruvilla said about the Lycra award, "Over the years, MTV has become an integral part of the mainstream style throughout the world, and we felt it was time to celebrate the ones who set the trend in our own backyard."
The channel, which is slowly changing its image from a devoted music channel to a youth/style-oriented one, will flag off India's first "adventure reality" show, MTV Roadies, in Chennai on Independence Day. The Roadies will be a gang of four men and three girls, riding their bikes from the beaches of Chennai to the chilly heights of Chail, covering a distance of 400 kms over 40 days. Immediately after this will come the style awards in October.
According to Dupont country head Satish Khurana, Lycra is fast being associated with the fashion industry worldwide. "Dupont is very positive about the Indian market. In China, we have entered the third year of the Lycra Fashion Awards and its one of the most sought after events today," Khurana explained. In Britain too, the British Fashion Awards has been rechristened 'Lycra British Style Award', he said.
The award function will be held on 18 October at Jamshed Bhabha Auditorium, Mumbai. Kuruvilla seemed to be at his charming best at the conference to announce the awards on Wednesday when he announced, "Style is a state of mind."
That was a stance that prevailed through the night. In spite of her late arrival at the conference, Shobhaa De hit a chord with the audience by quoting the Mahatma. "The biggest style statement ever made was by Gandhiji. He was once asked why he dressed so scantily in a dhoti. He replied I am dressed the way millions of other Indians are dressed," she said, immediately invoking the patriotic instincts of the crowd. MTV VJs Cyrus Broacha, Shenaz Treasurywala, Malaika Arora and Anusha were present at the conference among other celebs.
