The item girl look

Shefali Jariwala, Deepal Shaw and Rakhi Sawant. The three item girls who brought about the item-girl look should have been arrested. No, not by the moral police, but by the style police. They had no business prancing around with their blue thongs peeping out of shredded jeans (which they then claimed were not thongs at all), tiny school skirts with see-through, tinier tops and other tacky, netted concoctions which assaulted us from our small screens. Not because it was immoral, but because it was just plain ugly. It also spawned a regrettable trend of multicoloured bras and thongs playing hide-and-seek with salivating oglers. Ugggh.

 

 

 

Karisma Kapoor

Okay, okay, so she’s not a trend in the strictest sense. But her fashion offences, and their rub-off effect on the general populace, were so monumental that they catapult her to this list. Karisma from 1991 to 1996 was a walking, talking fashion faux pas. Her caterpillar eyebrows, frizzy hair, painful pink skirts and whatever else she wore with them left us reeling. We are sure they had the same effect on her co-stars — all except Govinda, who due to his own sartorial excesses, was better equipped than most to deal with the visual assault. Then Karisma met Manish Malhotra just in time, and saved her — and our eyes from permanent damage. Phew!

 

 

White pants and white shoes

Mr B wore them a few times. Mithunda wore them often. Jumping Jack wore them always. In fact, just about every hero of the 70s and 80s wore them. All to appalling effect. White pants DO NOT look good with white shoes. Come to think of it, white shoes (on men) cannot look good and neither can white pants — unless you are on the cricket field.

 

 

K-series kitsch

The accused is Nim Sood. She committed an unpardonable fashion crime while styling for her niece Ektaa Kapoor and all her K-serials. Balaji Telefilms is rumoured to spend an average of Rs 15 lakh-Rs 20 lakh per show on clothes every month for Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kasautii Zindagi Kay, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, Kkusum, Kutumb… Money not at all well spent. The OTT sequins, jazzy saris, dangling jewellery, scary make-up and bizarre bindis not only send the viewer scurrying for their shades, but also have husbands cowering from their copycat wives.

 

Frilly frocks

Frilly frocks look good only on little girls celebrating birthdays, and even they stay far away from the look nowadays. But this is one lesson the Bollywood class of 1985 to 1995 missed altogether. Madhuri Dixit, Raveena Tandon, Juhi Chawla, Sridevi and early Rani Mukerji must have really offended Anna Singh and Neeta Lulla. Why else would they be outfitted in frothy, unflattering, altogether unsexy numbers? And all that went with them, such as those perilous perms, plastic jewellery, horrid hair accessories and florescent lipsticks.

 

Elephant pants

This was one trend that spread from screen to street in no time. From Zeenat Aman and Hema Malini to the pretty girl next door, from Vinod Khanna and Dharmendra to the pretty girl-next-door’s boyfriend — everyone was in elephant pants. The colours were as garish as the girth — parrot green and flaming orange. These tight-till-the-hips and flared uncontrollably legs were worn with short, tight shirts in stripes and polkas.

 

 

Embroidered dhoti, colourful kurta

There is something so not classic or cool about the candy-coloured dhoti-kurta sprayed with girlie embroidery. Even so, the men getting married wore them. The men hopping the Puja pandals wore them. The NRI visitor wore them. Why, why, why? Some things are best kept simple.

 

 

Bursting-at-the-seams 60s

It’s a real wonder how the women in 60s could breathe easy. Keep in mind, these were not exactly size-zero times. So those explosive silhouettes — with the tight-tight-tight churidar-kurtas, Oriental-style dresses or super-wrapped saris — left little to the imagination. And the cone-like padded bras were not a pretty sight on screen either. Flaunted by Sadhna, Mala Sinha, Mumtaz and Saira Banu. But fulfilled by Asha Parekh.

 

 

 

 

 

Sideburns

Elvis Presley’s music and sideburns had an unparalleled effect on the world. Led by the likes of John Travolta in the 1970s, the sizeable sidelock shimmied its way through the disco era and even survived through the 80s. Amitabh Bachchan wore them, and so did Vinod Khanna. Every boyfriend, husband and father followed suit. Horror of hairy horrors, you will still see the odd puff on some retro rock loving, stylistically challenged soul.

 

 

 

 

Dhoti pants

Dhoti pants are a loud-and-clear example of fusion fashion gone wrong. With the billowing top getting more and more fitted towards the bottom, the dhoti pants were worn with a short kurti-like shirt and were awfully accessorised with jacket or stole. The silhouette was a hot favourite among socialites on the party circuit and leading Bollywood babes in ‘fashion shoots’ (with permed hair, of course). Dhoti pants are struggling to make a comeback and can be seen occasionally on the ramp, from Dior to Rohit Bal. Oh no, not again!

 

 

 

Said Valentino: “I hate the 80s — all that hair, the make-up, the ugly proportions. The shoulder pads were so big, sometimes they (Joan Collins and Linda Evans) looked like they could fly…. Grunge was outrageous, non-fashion, a melange of bric-a-brac and minimalism (all-black) was an offence to women. They all looked so terrible, like little nuns running around.” We decode these offences:

Grunge guru
The 90s saw Marc Jacobs’s models in designs inspired by Seattle’s rock bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The catwalk was full of oddly mixed and matched silhouettes. Army boots and plaid shirts paired with floral dresses and unfinished seams. It sent the fash frat into a tizzy and cost Marc his job at Perry Ellis. Fifteen years on, grunge remains, with a dash of sophisticated glamour. Jacobs has been creative director of Louis Vuitton since 1997.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boring black
Black has been around forever, but what Valentino disliked was the black wave that swept through the early 1980s. The classic black of Chanel’s LBD and YSL’s tuxedo suddenly took an avant-garde turn thanks to Japanese designers. It was accused of “abstraction, modernism and a lack of visual definition”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ugly 80s
The look was reflected through Dallas and Dynasty. Tailored and big on jackets, bodysuits and decorated tees. Colours were fuchsia, purple and royal blue. If that was not loud enough, there was an extra dose of shimmer with costume jewellery worn every day, and every night. The bling was blinding!