Arhi FF | Iss Darr Ko Kya Naam Doon

Chapter 3 | Fashion Show: Part 1/3

Loud chopping sounds magnified as he opened the door to the helipad custom-built on the terrace of his penthouse apartment in Delhi. He was scheduled to fly to his long awaited fashion show in Lucknow, in his private jet. He opened his phone to give a quick re-check of the itenary his PA had shared a week ago with him.

The order of the events for the day was already familiar to him. He just needed to ensure everything was still in order and that there were no last minute updates that might have popped up in the schedule.

Any other day, he wouldn't mind such changes dropping in once in a while. He understood that in this fast-paced business of fashion, order and consistency required a proportional amount of flexibility. But today was too important for him to be derailed by any unavoidable urgent tasks. So, his thorough self went through the schedule again.

First, he was supposed to take the chopper to Delhi's IGI Airport where a swanky black Raizada Jet waited to fly him to Lucknow.

Then he would take another chopper from there to the show's location: Shaastri Nivas Out House, Sheesh Mahal, Sheesh Mahal Lane.

The show won't begin until the next day 3 pm but he had to make an early stop at the venue for an urgent personal business.

Ideally, he wouldn't want to be having to run this errand this close to the event. It was a huge deal to for his textile industry and fashion label - Raizada, which was in the middle of an international expansion.

The world had transformed upside down since lockdown, the fast pace had somehow turned even faster, the insignificant formalities of the design processes had been dropped, workflows had become more refined and realistically demanding, communication had become more direct and less stingy, the workspaces had become hybrid, attention span had decreased and online media consumption had increased. During the pandemic, the world had become as close digitally as it had become isolated physically. India was at the cusp of a global change. The country and its businesses had now drawn a level of scrutiny that was never seen before. Not as a widely and unanimously recognized worthy competitor or collaborator.

The time was now.

He had spent the better part of the year carefully networking, working with his PR team, assembling a roster of potential marketeers and influencers, connecting and reconnecting with the owners of his peer brands to collaborate with, hiring agencies to understand his new audiences, preparing a bullet proof strategy for making the launches, gathering intel on the audiences from his prospective global market - beginning from New York, then moving to London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Naples, Monte Carlo, New Jersey, Chicago, Houston, Istanbul, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Glasgow, Sydney and Melbourne - in that order.

This intensive research had led to the next major step his label would take.

A show that was going to be pivotal in announcing his plans of re-poisitioning Raizada as a global brand.

Just the way he established its repertoire in the Indian market, with clever strategy and execution. He strongly believed that the brand was more than ready to scale its success at an international platform. So, naturally, his perfectionist self didn't leave a stone unturned to ensure that everything goes smoothely for this event. Much to his PR team's detriment had never bothered to indulge in public image outside his work-related activities like public engagement.

To indulge in social media relations as a prominent personality for once instead of the usual Raizada campaigns particularly was really out of his comfort zone.

From doing a media purge to running campaigns on social media for the purpose of harnessing favourable media impression was the most wierdest concepts to him.