The Luckies
The Labelled, Urban, Chilled, Kicked-with-life Indians are here. The most fortunate ever if only for the choices before it, this generation is glib, global, cocky and informed-and chases success with an awesome spending power.

Wages Of Peace
The Centre's decision to extend its cease-fire with the NSCN(I-M)
to three other north-east states leads to large-scale violence
in Manipur.

Man Of Letters
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's skill with the quill has the PMO busy acknowledging his missives. And on occasion agreeing to his demands.

Civil Lines
Pervez Musharraf's assuming the office of President is being seen as a bid to legitimise his position. A look at what this means in the context of his India visit.

Peace In Pipeline
India wants to put on Iran the onus of ensuring safe transit of gas.

COVER STORY: URBAN YOUTH

NEW STYLE
The Black Beauties

Luckies are global. You see her shop at Bloomingdale's and Ambavata's and can't tell the difference.

It's not enough to be lucky, but also to look Lucki. The 1960s belonged to beads and bellbottoms, the '70s to prim outre, the '80s was confusion with a low neckline and the Indian finally discovered dressing in the '90s. Lucki Dressing is the international style of 2000: you see him lounging in Broadway as well as swaggering down Colaba, you see her shopping at Bloomingdale's or Ambavata and can't tell the difference. The dress code is simple: you are the world, and you belong.

The New Look maintains an ironic balance between costume cloning and individualism, best typified by the 1990s Calvin Klein ads that screamed "Be Yourself"-but ended up selling the same kind of T-shirts to similar social groups all over the world. These were the clothes of a permanent universal emotion, the emotion of overlit shopping malls, Steven Soderbergh's films, and Jennifer Aniston's layered hairstyle. All predominantly symbols of unabashed take it or leave -it-at-your-own-risk Yankeeism. Mangesh Pidnekar, a 27-year-old, Mumbai-based manufacturer of automobile parts is an archetypal celebrant of this new influence: "I don't mind spending Rs 5,000 a month on clothes. For casuals I buy something from Cotton World or Benetton, for formals I prefer Versace, Gabbana, Armani and Tommy Hilfiger." So there. Satellite TVs blasting scores of international channels and the Internet pushing the world towards one big clothes-knit village. Fashion consultant and writer Meher Castellino agrees: "It's the exposure to TV that has shaped the current global look in India. Actually Indians have been aping the West since the British era; only it is more pronounced now."

The screen and the street are dressing cousins. Karisma Kapoor laughs confidently in her non-fussy polycrepe outfit with a bateau neckline; the chic new look given to her by designer Manish Malhotra. Ajay Devgan or Shah Rukh Khan wouldn't be caught dead in fuchsia, acid lemon or electric blue, colours revered by their "hueuphoric" male counterparts a decade earlier. Instead they choose cool limes, ambers and brackish greys. Monish Durgani, 22, a Mumbai-based clothes stylist for Channel V, says his idea of a dress would be to wear just "black trousers and a black knit cotton top," much like thousands of other 22-years-olds in all parts of the world. "Everyone in India wants to fit in and are afraid to be seen as weird," says Durgani.

And yes, black is the hottest club colour. The colour of all present day minimalist mutineers, the colour that designer Christian Lacroix called "matter as much as colour, light as much as shade; neither sad nor cheerful, but alluring and elegant, perfect and necessary." On any given Saturday night in Kolkata's The Big Ben or the Delhi's retro-decor Ricks, black is the colour that goes best with endless pitchers of Long Island Ice Tea or the customised Guav-Berry Martini. It's black for ribbed turtleneck T-shirts and sweaters (couple that with Tod's flat loafers and you've got the Parisian regimentals), black for the nylon bag (made irresistible by Prada), black for non-iron polylycra sheer shirts and not-so-sheer trousers, black for Ravi Bajaj-styled Jodhpurs, black for a microbe-free wraparound tops, black for a Burberry headscarf and black for the 21st century translations of the little black dress- made timeless by Coco Chanel in the 1930s. Says Kolkata designer Kiran Uttam Ghosh: "Even though they talk about psychedelic, youngsters today are wearing black, black and more black. And it's all micro, midriff-showing stuff, adhering to the principle less is more". Mumbai designer Hemant Trevedi adds that pastels and pale colours are out because "there's a danger of them merging with the background." For 20-year old reed-thin Kolkatan Anu Singh ("it's the Calista Flockart thing") who uses bi-colours for her lips (with a liner a darker shade than the lipstick) and trawls through the latest foreign magazines to get some tips on black dressing.

But all is not perfect in the sometimes skewed verisimilitude of the international look. Explains Delhi designer David Abraham, who exports 90 per cent of his label to London and Paris: "The dressing here is more superficial and offbeat, more mannered and calculated. Compare a super stylish club in London and Djinns. You'd probably find upstartish Versace here and an avant garde Yohji Yamamoto there."

But out of the emerging sophistication one thing is clear: The Luckies dress to stand out.

MetroScape

Delhi Decorative Art: D'addomio

Kolkata Restaurant: Thai Tonight

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Sleaze And Salvation