The new India An unlikely figure posed on the cover of Vogue India last November: Victoria Beckham. She was not dressed in one of her predictable torso-squelching shift dresses. Instead, she wore a traditional peach bikini top and long sari scarf, with a mang tikka, or bejewelled pendant, weaving through her softly tousled hair to hang from her forehead like a genetically engineered bindi.
The cover beamed with national pride, announcing Mrs Beckham as Vogue’s “Indian Bride”. The story made headlines worldwide and the edition was snapped up in more than 100 Indian cities, not to mention abroad. By procuring the sergeant-major of the western fashion army as their cover star, Vogue India – and by extension Indian fashion – had won global approval.
