The Goyard Story

That's Guillaume, a charming Frenchman who helped my daughter choose her Goyard, with a great deal of patience and understanding. It really is an experience, or else I wouldn't be writing about it. Goyard beat Louis Vuitton by one year, when it opened the store in 1853. Today, its custom made trunks are ordered by the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, who is one of Goyard's biggest customers. But it needed the vulgarity of a Paris Hilton, to get the right royal snub from Goyard when she had the temerity to ask for a discount, because she is Paris Hilton!! She was politely informed that Goyard does not offer discounts to anyone, not even Karl, who, in any case, never asks, even though his bills run into a million euros annually. Yes, just on Goyard trunks! While we were at the store, we watched Chinese and Japanese customers walking off with top of the line bags, without batting an eyelid while settling the bill. And the trunk Guillaume is posing with belonged to none other than Coco Chanel herself ( it has madmoiselle's initials inscribed). No wonder Guillaume's eyes are sparkling!

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This appeared on Mother's Day in Bombay Times....

Let’s put our weight behind Ash….

Any woman who has gone through pregnancy and become a mother, will understand this perfectly: Having a baby is a life transforming experience that beats all other experiences put together. Unfortunately, it is also a shape-transforming experience. That is how nature intended it. When a woman decides to have a baby, she accepts the entire package – additional kilos included. Some women, like Victoria Beckham pop out their beautiful babies without the slightest alteration to their sleek silhouettes – lucky them. Others, take time and allow their bodies to shrink at a slower pace… without obsessing over the extra weight. They make the baby their top priority, nurse the infant, enjoy that marvelous, tender time together, without giving a damn about a double chin, or a few tyres around the waist. Those melt away later, once the new mother resumes her normal routine and starts a simple regimen to keep the newly acquired fat deposits at bay. It is generally a highly narcissistic new mum who chooses to make her own weight a priority above everything else – the baby’s well being included. Clearly, Aishwarya Rai is not that woman. And can we please get off her back and let her enjoy her little one without giving her grief each time she steps out of her home? Frankly, the spiteful and hostile comments to Aishwarya’s post-baby appearance have been so exaggerated one wonders why. Is it because our own idyll of perennial perfection and startling beauty has been somehow shattered? After all, Aishwarya is consistently referred to as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’. There have been enough green-with-envy rivals who have spent sleepless nights trying to topple her from that throne. Ash was the lucky actress who had it all… including a fairytale marriage to a really sweet guy. Then came the baby news. All this was a bit too much for some to handle. Competitors had waited long years to find that chink in her Ash’s armour… something they could swoop down on. And they found it in – of all places – her weight!

It is like a vicious , orchestrated campaign against a woman who generates a huge amount of jealousy just for looking the way she does. It gives plain looking ladies a vicarious thrill to see Ash in a less than flattering light right now. Her more enlightened sponsors are standing by her, though, insists her spokesperson. And they respect her right to enjoy motherhood minus pressure to fit into a single digit size gown. There’s more to life than that red carpet appearance… yes, even at Cannes. Ash realizes as much.New mothers in urban society have it really hard these days. It is such a pity. We are being brainwashed into feverishly ‘getting into shape’, even before the baby is weaned. There are young mothers who refuse to breast feed their kids for fear of losing their curves and ‘sagging’! There are others who go so far as to say they don’t want to ‘spoil’ their figures by having a baby in the first place. The film industry imposes its own cruel diktats , making demands on mothers in the business to look like svelte and sexy ‘yummy mummies’ overnight… or else! Women are idiotically punishing themselves instead of enjoying motherhood for what it is – a time to make the most of those magical months when an innocent, entirely dependent new life thrives on and flowers with the mother’s unconditional love,attention and care.Ash has chosen to invest in her daughter, rather than hit the gym neurotically or starve herself to fit into those old jeans. It’s time to butt out of her life and leave her alone.Ash has her priorities in place - her mommie- time with the baby could well be the best decision of her life.Besides, the glow of motherhood is the best cosmetic in the world…. Because mother and baby are both ‘worth it’.

Happy Mother’s Day!