India started being considered as a rising elephant in the global luxury market in the early to mid 2000s. Circa 2005, as Executive Editor of L’OFFICIEL, I was fortunate to experience this fascination with India, when I was sent to interview the head honchos of major luxury houses like Cartier, Chanel, Jaeger Lecoultre, Pateck Phillipe, Chopard, and Nicolas Hayeck, the CEO of the Swatch group (with brands like Longines, Breguet, Swatch and Omega). The latter didn’t make time to meet any other mediapersons from India, which truly made us feel significant. The brand head at Mont Blanc was so impressed by the questions I asked, he pulled out a platinum Mont Blanc bracelet for me to wear. And Jaeger Lecoultre praised the royal palaces of India and ordered special bespoke chocolates for me and our publisher, Arjun Mehra.

These pages capture the magic of those heady encounters…!
I also spent a weekend in Paris as a press guest, invited to view the restored legendary necklace of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala. Cartier used to tweak and reset a lot of heirloom jewels belonging to our royals, in the much lighter metal of platinum. While the original diamonds of this Patiala treasure had long been pilfered away, Cartier inputed semi-precious stones in their place, evoking at least some of the grandeur of the original!

They say what you do for a living, also becomes you. By a mystical osmosis, a self-professed bookworm like me became a fashion butterfly over the years, and my fashion choices also put me in the influencer space on social media. Enjoy the many fashion avatars I have taken leaning on different luxury Indian designer’s aesthetics, and then some looks I essayed in the world’s fashion capital, London!

THAT INFLUENCER MADNESS!

A GREAT LOVER OF LUXURY AND FASHION SANGEETA KEEPS ON TOP OF NEW LAUNCHES AND DESIGN TALENT WHEREVER SHE GOES. WE SEE HERE WEARING AN ASSORTMENT OF LOOKS..