Weekends in Delhi.

Delhi is 5 hours on train from Dehradun. That's positively local by India standards. We've spent two weekends in Delhi so far.

The first time was for Carrie's birthday, and she wanted to visit 'Delhi Fashion Week'. Apparently it was advertised in 'Indian Cosmo' and 'Indian Elle', but when we got there we found it wasn't open to the public - only to buyers and media. We tried sneaking in anyhow - we managed to get past the first security guard by mumbling something and pointing inside. Then we came to a receptionist.

Noel	Can we go in?
Receptionist	You need a pass to get in. Where are you from?
Noel	England
Receptionist	No, I mean which company?
Noel	Well, we represent three independent boutiques in the south of England. You won't have heard of them...
Carrie	<Gasp>
Receptionist	Wait a minute, I'll see what I can do.

Then we were handed passes and ushered into the auditorium. There's a catwalk right down the middle with models tottering along on it, we're in the banks of seating with other buyers, across on the other side are all the media types, and just to the left of us, at the end of the catwalk is a huge bank of press photographers snapping away. Blimey!

We saw three shows back-to-back. Carrie really enjoyed it - and I tried to look knowledgable and fiddled with my phone in what I hoped was a business-like way. Looking around there was possibly three or four other tourists who had blagged it, but most were buyers from companies. As well as the catwalk, the audience was worth watching - harrased looking indian journalists; Delhi's answer to Ab-Fab; women done-up-to-the-eyebrows; and some who looked quite a state. I didn't dare take any photos - I thought we'd be slung out.

After the show was over we wandered around the designer's stands. They were mostly interested in selling bulk orders, although some bits were for sale, these were samples, or in size 0. Carrie had a good rummage anyhow.

There's some photos of Delhi below.

Delhi