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Actor Ranveer Singh’s nude pictures published last week in ‘Paper’, an American pop culture magazine, have generated much comment on the internet, a clothes donation drive in Indore, and an FIR in Mumbai. While publicly he maintains a silence, well advised by his lawyers, in private, the star might not be exactly unhappy.
Just the day before the FIR was lodged, he was air-kissing Mumbai’s advertising and marketing pundits at the International Advertising Association Awards where he won the IAAA Brand Endorser of the Year.
Few modern stars understand brand salience as well as Ranveer Singh does. The star who doesn’t belong to any film family has risen to the top of the heap on the strength of his talent, his famous energy and his acute fashion sensibility.
So, what is Ranveer, often featured in the fashion press for his Baroque style, telling us when he opts for stark minimalism?
A product of the Insta age, he understands the power of digital media – where pictures, videos, reels outweigh everything else. He has used fashion, his
choice of flamboyant clothing to arresting effect. He dresses in hallucinogenic colours, feminine silhouettes, OTT sneakers, large diamond earrings, has carried outré accessories (including a blaring Marshall Acton Bluetooth boombox), ensuring his photos are top pick for fashion and entertainment editors.
Singh, through his fashion, heralded the arrival of a new-age man. In ‘Bajirao Mastani’ he was bald, mustachioed and styled in flaring dhotis, nipple-bearing angrakhas and wearing as much jewellery as the female characters in the film.
His hyper masculinity carries with it shades of androgynous appeal. The waspy
muslin clothes catering as much to the female gaze as to that of the homosexual male.
It was only last week that Brad Pitt stepped out in a skirt, Ranveer was doing this version quite some time ago, combining lehengas with a bandhgala. His designer then, Sabyasachi, once told me in an interview: “In India, where patriarchy decides everything, women are the biggest casualty. But one must not forget that several men are the victims of patriarchy too. In traditional joint families, rules and roles
have been decided for men. Men must not cry, must not show emotion, they must not show weakness. Ranveer gives these men the courage to break free.”
In 2015, Sabya had predicted that a decade down the line more and more men would be dressing how Ranveer Singh dressed then. Right Brad?
With uncanny timing Ranveer Singh played the bisexual king Allaudin Khilji in ‘Padmaavat’ with a touch of bravura while the Supreme Court of India decriminaled homosexuality in 2018, His androgynous clothing and peacock-like fashion also paid homage to feminism at a time when the sisters needed it the most. Labels like Gucci and Dior have turned menswear into dandy dressing, offering a huge pushback to the set ideas of masculinity.
Kim Jones’s Dior man wore pearl earrings, rosettes and velvet elbow-length gloves. Alessandro Michele’s Gucci menswear borrows from women’s wear with large floral prints. The MeToo hashtag birthed a new man in fashion: A dandy divorced from the ideas of both violence and sexism.
In his personal life too Ranveer has devotedly and loudly professed admiration for his wife Deepika Padukone’s beauty and talent. It’s such a rarity in macho Bollywood where traditionally, actress girl friends or wives have had to take a backseat so their partners can shine brighter.
Ranveer, unafraid of sharing spotlight, flaunts his fearlessness and confidence once again as poses in the buff. Clothes don’t maketh the man, he is announcing to the world. Don’t be surprised if you see a toned down, more serious version of Ranveer Singh in a world that has emerged from the pandemic a little more sombre and as Bollywood struggles to recast the hero in a more macho vein. In all likelihood, the spotlight will now be on his talent than his clothes. It’s a newly born Ranveer that you saw in ‘Paper’.
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