BLOOKED

26-year-old Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan.
Read all about India’s first big blog-to-book phenomenon on Tehelka.

BRAND ASIA RISING

The Cult of the Luxury Brand : Inside Asia's Love Affair with Luxury
By Radha Chadha & Paul Husband
Pages : 341
Price : US $35
Published : 2007 by Nicholas Brealey
This book could have been anything. A serious academic treatise on branding in Asia that could have rested well in the dust covered shelves of a library of a management school perhaps. A statistical discourse, crunching some numbers that would have been beyond you and me. When I first heard of the title, I thought that was it would be.

'The Cult of the Luxury Brand' is nothing like that at all. The first book to explore the 'luxeplosion' in Asia it has some numbers. Like 94% of women in Tokyo own a Louis Vuitton bag, that Japanese tourists are the largest LV buyers in Paris or that India has a three month waiting list for the choicest brands. Beyond that, there is a whole lot more.

If you think all of this has happened overnight, think again. Authors Radha Chadha and Paul Husband argue that the "forces that created Asia's cult of the luxury brand were in set in motion around 100 years ago." Really? Get ready for a quick history lesson in branding starting with a century of world fashion unfolding through the Chinese cheongsam. India in the early 1900s saw royalty on the move in Europe. Shopping trips took them to London to Paris to specially commissioned pieces from the likes of Vuitton to Cartier. "The famed Patiala necklace was made by Jacques Cartier for the Maharaja of Patiala in 1928 - it's a show-stopper with 2,930 diamonds totalling 1,000 carats, including the 234-carat De Beers diamond, the seventh largest in the world."

You are only on Page 11 of this hedonistic ride and dying to know more. So when did all of this change? When did the wave actually start? What explains the Herme-tic explosion in Asia. The authors get to that. From the study of the rise and rise of the Japanese markets to the Chinese, to the South Koreans to the emergence of India. It's one spectacular story after the other. As the markets keep growing, the Asian luxury goods market takes 37% of the global pie which is worth US $80 billion.

With several interviews and quotes thrown in for good measure, its interesting to go through the emergence of the various luxury types. I enjoyed the 'Popcorn and Caviar' section in particular. This shows the ultra-luxe brands are being mixed and matched with street wear or sometimes even the impossibly hard to detect fakes. Speaking of fakes, there's a whole chapter on the 'Advent of the Genuine Fakes,' where it all begins with catalogue browsing. Who would have thought of the new levels of sophistication? And just who is faking it? Just about everyone from the super to noveau to the wannabe rich. As the authors point out, "everywhere in Asia, people are faking it with few pangs of conscience."

Though that isn't going to slow things down for the real luxury market. In Japan, luxury has become a way of life. Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and China are rapidly getting there. And not too far behind is India with its emerging brand consciousness. The future of Luxe, it may safely be said rests in Asia.

THE ASIAN FASHION TIMELINE:
Source: The Cult of the Luxury Brand
1837: Louis Vuitton starts making trunks at the court of Empress Eugenie and goes on to open his first store in Paris in 1854. A century and a half later, his brand conquers the hearts of the Japanese and its brown monogram become de rigueur for Asia's noveau riche.

1895: Thomas Burberry creates the trenchcoat. First worn by British officers during the Boer War, it is now so well entrenched in Asia that 'Burberry' is
often used as the Korean word for raincoat.

1915: The beginning of Burberry's long and checkered history in Japan.

1956: The rise of the to die for Hermes bag. Waiting lists for the bag costing US$5,000-US$10,000 are indefinitely closed in Asia.

1978: The triangular Prada symbol emerges as one of the hottest in Asia.

1999: It's Burberry fever in Asia after Kate Moss sports the signature checks on a designer bikini.

2001: Hermes 11-storey glass-brick retail extravaganza opens in Ginza, Tokyo. It's hysteria all round.

2006: Armani and Chanel stage haute couture shows in Hong Kong, signalling the opening of a lucrative ultra-high-end-segment in Asia.

2007: India enters a new phase of luxury retailing with the launch of DLF Emporio in New Delhi, the country's first luxury mall with a "who's who" roster of top brands.

CALL ME....

A Dreamer....

I dream of staircases, ladders and a room full of books.

A dramatic table in the middle, a lamp to complete the picture.

A Mac if you insist.

Shelves organised by genre, authors, years.

Of the day when the book shelves I pre-order look like the book shelves I want.

When the bric-a-bracs will stop fighting for space with books.

Of pictures of books that look just the way they should.

It's happening slowly but surely.... the last bit I mean....

Armed with a shiny new Nokia N73 in hand, I've been trying a couple of things, like sharpening the Nazar adorning the Balinese lamp sitting pretty on this chest from Gujarat....


Blurring out the Maharajas on this Chinese one....


Adding a dash of light to this one....


Fading it out here....


Toning down the orange here.....



And reminding myself to get organised here....


Clicking, uploading, writing is merely a click away. It's Carl Zeiss optics at work, so even if you have butter fingers, there is hope.

I love the way the 3.2 megapixel camera opens a world of possibilities, giving you the gorgeous display, telling you to get on with the action. There's an auto-focus, making capture everything on the go a breeze. Perfect, when you are attempting to pace the lil ones on the run. I've only just begun and I can already see the world of visuals unravelling before me. Truly couldn't have asked for more.

There's a whole lot more to it, though it'll take me a while to figure it all out.

For now, I can assure you of finer pictures on this blog and this one too. As they say, keep looking.

An enormously huge thank you to Miguel Bernas for getting me wired into Nokia's world.

BOOKS ON AIR

It all starts with disbelief.

How do you make books work on air? Who is reading anyway? It'll never work.....

Hearing talk show queen Oprah Winfrey speak on Larry King Live, it all comes back. The memories of getting it all together, to getting it off the ground, to making it work.

For Oprah it started with a chat with her Producer Alice. They'd been exchanging books for a long time and Alice mentioned it was time to start talking about the books that had touched them. And what better way to do it, than to give them air time.

Oprah's first reaction was no, though after her initial apprehension, she took on books and soon the Oprah Book Club was doing what even the best reviewers couldn't - making and breaking books.

Her barometer for picking a good book and that explains why her books connect in the way they do is simple enough:
"I have to read every book I talk about.....just like everybody else I'll talk about it if I love that book."

Over the years, she has loved several books. Ranging from memoirs to a story of surviving a holocaust to the story of a father and son's journey towards the sea and an uncertain salvation. Cormac McCarthy's The Road is clearly one of her favourites at the moment.

"Have you read it?" she asks Larry King, for a minute switching roles.
"No, I haven't," Larry responds....
You can almost feel Oprah kicking herself under the table for not having picked that up as a present for Larry's 50 years in broadcasting special before urging him "you must read it." The sheer power of her words is enough to have you rushing to the closest bookstore. I wouldn't have to do that though, as Zafar picked it up as a gift for us last weekend.

Back to Oprah, though...
From The Road, she takes you on an amazing journey with the The Colour Purple. "I was obsessed with this story," she unabashedly confesses before launching into an enormously gripping narration of her audition, her stint in the fat farm, the painful wait, the singing of 'I surrender....' while fighting to keep the pounds off her body, that phone call, the meeting with Steven Spielberg and finally landing the role she'd dreamt of playing - that of Sofia. Books eventually are about belief as Oprah clearly demonstrates before moving on to the next book The Secret , its journey and the phenomenal transformations in people's lives thanks to the book.

"The way you think creates reality for you," she points out. I couldn't agree more.

NEED MORE PROOF?

Just when I thought the seasonal colours would change, three more recent and soon to be released books arrive in what else but...... Looks like I've got the colour of my blog right at least.

I'm particularly looking forward to Marina Lewycka's Two Caravans. If you've already read A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, you obviously know why.

COLOURED BY COVERS

There was a time when every book I touched came with a blue cover. I remember that distinctly because every blue cover would fade into the blue virtual wall on the set.

I recall speaking to both Sadie Jane (of Pansing) and Zhi Wei (of Penguin) - both superb publicists in their own right - about the season of covers. Do all designers opt for blues or pinks or purples or browns in any given season? Is there a shared space when it comes to covers and their colours?



I'm not entirely sure about the designers but I can tell you that colours are definitely steering my reading of late. Everything I seem to be touching is off white, cream or beige. Thought that would change the minute I was done with Rageh Omaar's, Revolution Day but the addition of John Zubrzycki's The Last Nizam to our collection means beige is here to stay.

A BOOKER BY ANY OTHER NAME

It's becoming increasingly tough to keep track of the Booker.

Nominees have just been announced for the Man Booker International Prize. Lest, you think what you are thinking, don't confuse this with the Man Booker Prize. The one that gave us our literary inheritance back by honouring Kiran Desai.

What's the difference, you may ask? Isn't a Man Booker or a Booker by any other name the prestigious literary award - the one that catapults books into bestsellers, makes the prize-winning authors the toast of the literatti and the gliteratti.

Subtle differences exist. If you were to read the fine print the Man Booker International Prize sets itself apart from its other famous predecessor by looking at work from fiction writers of any nationality. The only criteria - the work should be written in or translated into English. The 60,000-pound award is presented every two years to highlight a living writer's continued contribution to fiction on the world stage.

So what can you expect?

The names you've heard so many times before. That pretty much makes up for the 15 finalists. Among others there's Salman Rushdie sharing the long list with Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, John Banville, Philip Roth, Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje.

The inaugural prize in 2005 was awarded to Ismail Kadare, so could it be Carlos Fuentes this time round? Find out in early June. That's when the panel of judges make their pronouncements.

If you are into award-tracking, it isn't too long a wait for the Pulitzer Prize though. They will be announced on April 17th, with the awards ceremony slated for May 22nd. Yup, the award season has only just begun.