OUR FAVORITE F WORDS

Why fashion and food are frolicking together in an epic romance.

- RASHMI UDAY SINGH

What's going on? How come we are licking, munching, crunching and swallowing the hallowed almost two-century-old Louis Vuitton monogram? Is it true that the houses of haute couture that have long glorified the skinny and the anorexic are now cohabiting with the decadent and the gourmet? For sure, high octane fashion houses are copulating not just with Michelin starred restaurants but also rebel chefs. The two F words 'fashion' and 'food' have been teasing and flirting with each other over the years. And doing so in multiple ways. It's only in the recent past that the fashion houses' passion has sashayed down the gourmet restaurant runways with oomph.

THE SHOW STOPPERS

LV AND GAGGAN

Lets begin with my latest taste of LVMH, perched in a sprawling Bangkok shopping mall. What is the world's most awarded culinary rebel superstar Gaggan Anand doing in partnership with the conservative heritage Louis Vuitton fashion brand? Quite the opposite of the counter seating, informal, and wild Gaggan Anand experience is this serene highly stylised LV Gaggan. Here, LV motifs peep in and out of ice cubes, plates and glasses. LV transforms the private dining room into its iconic trunk shape and Gaggan's wild dressing style into the elegant LV one. Happily, there is no takeover, both brands do the foxtrot and bhangra together; each one retaining it's identity.