Paris’ Galeries Lafayette undertakes a Bollywood Makeover
By Elyse Weingarten

That the kitch of one culture becomes the panache of another is a testament to the creative flux of civilization. From April 26th, until May 14th, Paris’ Galeries Lafayette, the century-old, high end department store that introduced the world to John Paul Gaultier, remakes itself as a Bollywood showcase. Galeries Lafayette creates India (as it perhaps never existed) through an eclectic array of products and services that includes: ‘Spirit of India,’ an original line of fashion, accessories and home furnishings; a traditional Indian tea room; a reconstruction of the famed Shanti theater of Madras, offering Bollowood clips never released before in France; a holistic medicine center, Peace Cottage, named after its original in the southern state of Kerala; and the most recent collections of up-and-coming Indian designers Manish Arora, Kavita Barthia, and Rina Dhaka. This is not to mention the dance performances that take place in the store windows six times per day, the hedda-ed musicians and dancers that welcome customers as they walk in, or original Bollywood-inspired art work by photographer Anne Garde and painter Baba Anand.

	Galleries Lafayette Website

The writer would like to mention here that she will spare the reader from suffering through another overdose of hyper- political, cliqued analyzation that this such phenomenon, otherwise known colloquially as ‘East Meets West’ (or in high circles, that big G word: globalization) often provokes. That fact is that doing so would cut the elaborate production that Galeries Lafayette has put together short. Bollywood, at Galeries Lafayette, is a shameless and brilliant exploitation of all the luxurious stereotypes that India could possibly offer. It is India as if it had never been colonized, if every India citizen could afford Gucci and Prada; it is India…with air conditioning.

Bollywood, as India’s biggest export, is know all over the world for its outlandish costumes and melodies of love, the campy close-ups of eye-lash batting women platonically embracing tersely built men, and the repeated recitation of the theme, “love will conquer all.” That Bollywood films would have an international cult following is of no surprise to anyone. That many Indian ex-pats or second generation emigrants find themselves bothered by the fact that Bollywood receives so much attention outside of India, as the most common representation of their native culture, is not surprising either. What is surprising is that the biggest department store in Europe would devote almost three weeks to such a transformation.

How is it that Bollywood, as a Bombay-bred friend of mine, recently explained to me “isn’t for people like me. It is for the masses” become claimed by Galeries Lafayette, one of the cutting edge trendsetters in European fashion? The truth is that Bollywood sells. How style chooses the emblems of the low classes or the loudest cultural sports, and mixes them together for the newest, avant-guardist trends, has been followed by social scientists for decades. There is even a word for it: Bricolage, from the French verb, bricoler, which means to tinker with. Thus, Bollywood film posters are jazzed up as high end journals, Bollywood films from the 1940s are put on DVDS with new audio commentaries by experts of Indian cinema. And this isn’t just Westerners that these products are directed at. At the opening for the exhibit, half the crowd was Indian. Most of the Indian ex-pats or second generation emigrants that I know adore Bollywood productions, giggle at their audacity, but love them all the same. The Bollywood and India that Galeries Lafayette produces is nothing at all like the original, but it is the closest that one can get to India and Bollywood in France or Europe, and still remain relevant to consumers and individuals interested in other cultures. The desire to see other places and know other cultures is as innate to humanity as original sin (if you ask some people, it is the original sin). But there is no feasible way to reproduce a place; it could be said that any representation of another society becomes the art of its host culture. Most people don’t have to opportunity to travel to India. The closest they can get is literature, movies, art, and department store expositions. The representation that Galeries Lafayette has put together is artificial, yes, but it INDIA AND BOLLYWOOD AS SEEN BY FRANCE FOR PEOPLE WHO PLAN TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY. And still, I argue, it is art, all the same.

Quite progressive, Galeries Lafayette has been having cultural exhibits such as this, since 1953’s exhibition on Italy. Earlier this year, Galeries Lafayette had an exhibition on China and in June, there will be an exhibition on Brazil. Caroline de Maisonneuve, the Marketing and promotions manager, Asia explains, “Fashion is so global that you have to talk about other countries and go beyond just textiles, if you want to reach out to today’s consumers. Having exhibitions is also a chance to introduce new fashion designers to our customers and to France.”

I recommend to anyone who has to opportunity to stop by Galeries Lafayette and see the Bollywood exposition, to do so. It is quite extraordinary. The reconstruction of the Theater of Madras is worth a visit alone. And the art work by Garde and Anand is also quite interesting and good. Have a tea, have a massage, visit a life coach at the Peace Cottage, or buy a shirt from a new top Indian designer. It is true that some might be offended by the Ganesh tote bags and Shiva stationary and floral flip-flops, and worry that India is being sold at half price. However, I offer the following advise: relax. It’s just a department store, not an ethnographic museum. It is supposed to be fun. After all, fashion isn’t that serious; it is just civilization.