If you think fashion, styling and walking the ramp is all about professionals and years of intensive training, you’re mistaken. The one thing that was obvious to the spectators of the Dreeam Cast modelling workshop fashion show was that all that matters when you are under those hot and blinding spotlights is ‘attitude’.

For the 25 kids and 20 adults who walked the ramp for the first time on Monday, the experience wasn’t about it being a stepping stone to a professional modelling career. It was about feeling good about themselves, losing inhibitions and gaining confidence.

“Right from the two-year-old kids to the adults, all of our students walked the ramp for the first time. And I tell you, the experience has given them a new perspective on how they view their lives. Whether they become models or not, they now know how to portray themselves and how to style themselves. That’s an invaluable thing to people,” said photographer Karthik Srinivasan, the man behind Dreeam Cast.

The event was organised as a five sequence show, with themes including ethnic, western and fusion. The most entertaining, if not the most striking, was the sequence that had the rampwalkers, both adult and kids, attired in beach party wear jiving to heart thumping tunes.

The dancing was an important part of the 10-day workshop according to Karthik. “It is important for them to lose their inhibitions. And quite frankly, most professional rampwalkers have no idea how to dance,” he pointed out. “We made sure our students would learn to relax on the ramp and I think you can judge how it worked out,” he said.

And the event concluded its dazzling exhibition in true fashion show mode, with the final sequence featuring women in a series of elegant yet striking evening dresses and men in dark brooding black. “Whatever we aim to do, we do teach them how to model. And this show which we put up for every year’s batch of students shows both the world and them what they have learnt,” said Karthik. And if the attitudes of some youngsters who hit the ramp were are any indication, some of them are definitely on the fast-track to becoming hot-shot models soon.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express Features – Chennai / May 14th, 2014