This column is not going to get me into the good books of a lot of women. But if one is a fashion watcher then there are times when speaking out is so necessary, if trends that are unfashionable need to be nipped in the bud.

The mail brings in the strangest things. No, I’m not talking of the spam messages that often fly in from God knows where, but of the publicity photographs that public relations companies send, hoping to lure us into using their products.

Yesterday brought in one such. The image showed five or six society women posing in front of the now mandatory logo embellished backdrop that is part of any event. They were indirectly endorsing the product, or the company wanted us to believe they were, as they were posing along with the brand ambassador for the product.

It was a photograph that will, I am sure appear in many newspapers and magazines, in their society pages or supplements. And no one will see anything wrong in the picture. Which is a comment on the infantile state of this country’s fashion sensibilities.

I don’t know which brands of clothes the women were wearing; being the ‘high profile’ fashionistas they are, the brands must have been truely international ones. These events are, after all a show of one-up womanship, too.

The clothes in themselves were fine, the women in themselves were fine too. The objection I have is in the fact that the two combined.

Fashion is about dressing to show oneself to advantage. To highlight one’s assets in a graceful, subtle way; hide one’s flaws. For few are lucky enough to be perfect. Fashion is also about finding out what works for one’s personality, and that includes colours, silhouettes, lengths and fabric types.

Women who can wrap fashion into something that flatters their personality, are elegant and always well turned out. They are able to look different for different occasions, without losing their individuality and grace.

Ah, so essential, but so tough. Buying a garment because it is part of the latest collection of a coveted international fashion brand is as close to fashion harakiri as one can get, unless by a major coincidence, the garment is perfectly suited to the body type and the persona.

Yet, in the rush to be ahead of the rest, how many women think this out? Some of those in the picture surely did not. So, we saw a brand new line of draped garments that did none of the wearers any favours.

Yet, seemingly, everything was in order. The women were in the latest collections, correctly accessorised, carrying perfect little jewelled clutches,... Why else would the PR agency send out their photos to the wide world?

Fashion is also about carrying oneself with dignity. But the body language that came through was not quite right. It spoke so clearly about the unspoken rivalries, the silent statements of ‘I am better than you’ that hung over the women. Only the brand ambassador, despite her many face-fixing operations, smiled supremely as she stood squarely facing camera, sure of her status as queen bee of that group at least.

It’s not just the five women under my microscope that I think err in this manner. Any do these days, and the clothes women of all sizes and shapes turn up in, is a fashion watcher’s nightmare. Not all of them are comfortable dressing the way they do, some do it out of a feeling that wearing something traditional will put them out of sync and thus they will go unnoticed or be the object of some oblique ridicule.

I remember at one such do, looking in supressed horror at the way a normally very elegant actor had come dressed. It was a fashion event in a disco, and she had abandoned her lovely silk saris for a black something that did nothing for her figure or her otherwise matte complexion.

She must have noticed my look for she came up and asked me if there was something wrong. “I hope, I am not looking too bad,” she said. “My daughters made me put away my sari and wear this. You can’t go to a disco in a sari, ma, they said, and made me wear this black thing.”

I knew her well enough to hint that she looked incredible in her own clothes and had a personal style statement that did not need amendment ever. I have never seen her in strange clothes since, as she has preferred style over trend.

Therein lies the secret then, which the page 3, avid gym followers and others like them need to unravel.

Style comes with confidence and from a sense of who you are. It does not need great spends or frequent changes of your wardrobe’s contents. It does need a nice, clear, full-length mirror and a pair of unbiased eyes.

Then, PR photos will turn out doing some PR for the women they feature too, and not just for the product they are endorsing, actively or otherwise.