TLC's "What Not to Wear India" should be a lesson on why Western TV shows can never be successfully replicated in the subcontinent. We're just different animals.
Soha Ali Khan is great. She has the personality and the smarts, not to mention the good looks, to host something like this. Aki Narula, although flinging his hands about indiscriminately, is palpably sincere. So where have they gone wrong? The first client was enough for me to know instantly: It's in the people they've chosen to reinvent. The woman had only one thing to give her a passport to the show: A stunning absence of style. She also had a corresponding absence of a single accent, it being a mixture of Surat and the States. Apart from that, she was inarticulate, dull and never underwent the emotional transition that made Trinny and Susannah's chosen few such a hit.
There is also one other rather inexplicable element: The clothes Soha and Aki choose for the client are horrendous. I cringed every time she appeared in another tasteless, badly-tailored, cheap outfit. What the hell was going on. Especially as Soha herself was dressed beautifully. Then, of course, I got it.
This is India. We don't have anything like Topshop or Forever 21 or H&M. Yes, we have Zara and Aldo but what, that's it? And no one not associated with Bollywood can buy designer labels like Jimmy Choo and Vuitton. The rest of what's available to us, exemplified by the most downmarket malls it's been my misfortune to be surrounded by (in the south of India, admittedly Delhi's are good), is tacky in the extreme.
Which is why this programme is like hearing hooves thundering in the distance; it feels like it's being brought to our screens by one of the Horsemen destined to usher in the Apocalypse.
Like we needed any more.
Soha Ali Khan is great. She has the personality and the smarts, not to mention the good looks, to host something like this. Aki Narula, although flinging his hands about indiscriminately, is palpably sincere. So where have they gone wrong? The first client was enough for me to know instantly: It's in the people they've chosen to reinvent. The woman had only one thing to give her a passport to the show: A stunning absence of style. She also had a corresponding absence of a single accent, it being a mixture of Surat and the States. Apart from that, she was inarticulate, dull and never underwent the emotional transition that made Trinny and Susannah's chosen few such a hit.
There is also one other rather inexplicable element: The clothes Soha and Aki choose for the client are horrendous. I cringed every time she appeared in another tasteless, badly-tailored, cheap outfit. What the hell was going on. Especially as Soha herself was dressed beautifully. Then, of course, I got it.
This is India. We don't have anything like Topshop or Forever 21 or H&M. Yes, we have Zara and Aldo but what, that's it? And no one not associated with Bollywood can buy designer labels like Jimmy Choo and Vuitton. The rest of what's available to us, exemplified by the most downmarket malls it's been my misfortune to be surrounded by (in the south of India, admittedly Delhi's are good), is tacky in the extreme.
Which is why this programme is like hearing hooves thundering in the distance; it feels like it's being brought to our screens by one of the Horsemen destined to usher in the Apocalypse.
Like we needed any more.
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