Picture this. A Bollywood star disembarks from her car at the airport. She’s wearing an oversized shirt and baggy pants. Or mom jeans, a vest that looks suspiciously like my dad’s banian but costs more than my rent, and a cardigan that’s slipping just the right degree off a perfectly toned shoulder. She balances a giant bag in the crook of her arm. Her face is inscrutable beneath dark sunglasses. She could be going to a flea market in Goa or jetting off for the Paris Fashion Week. No one can tell.
Before she’s even cleared security, her airport look has whizzed manically across the internet and been discussed, dissected and declared a hit or a miss by hawk-eyed fashion commentators. By the time she reaches the tarmac, her outfit has been reverse-searched, price-tagged and crammed into multiple “get the look” carousels. None of this is scheduled. There’s no social media brief, or marketing campaign, or inspired collab to credit for this moment. Yet, it is potent enough to catapult a struggling brand into a stratosphere of sales. Does this mean the fashion economy runs on fragile, photogenic coincidences?
