If he had put as much energies into the script as he put into its promotion, the film would have been quite different. But here, the ‘Madhur Magic’ is missing. You expect much more from a (National) award-winning director because you know he is capable of bigger things.

Dramatically, it’s Priyanka’s journey that is the most comprehensive as it tackles her growth from an ambitious, young girl to an arrogant model who fails to handle her success, crumbles and then rises again, like the proverbial Phoenix. The actress delivers a competent performance and yet, has tough competition from the other two girls.

In the final analysis, Fashion seems to be telling us that a driven, career-oriented woman is destined to be alone and suffer all manner of indignities if a good man (her father, her boyfriend, her friend’s husband) isn’t around to rescue her or to place her on the right path when she loses her way. It also seems to say that the only way to be happy is to never become truly successful. Oh yes, it also lectures that true success makes a person arrogant and unlikeable — thereby paving the path for future failure and disgrace.

The solid reason why FASHION works is because Madhur brings alive everything you’ve read in newspapers or watched on TV as an outsider, to the big screen. And that works and how!

This is just a film that sadly reconfirms moralistic misconceptions most people hold against the fashion industry. And against an ambitious woman who wants to make it big in the glamour world. When the character of Meghna falls flat, the chauvinistic can almost say we told you so. Thankfully, she does pick herself up.