Bollywood actress Soha Ali Khan gets nervous when it comes to walking the ramp and finds it difficult to be part of fashion world as it is “quite critical”.

“I get very nervous walking the ramp as I don’t like it. When you do a movie sometimes you watch it with the audience but not always. Here (walking the ramp) you get feedback immediately as there is a live audience,” Soha told PTI in an interview here.

“Fashion world is quite critical and so it is difficult to be part of it,” she said.

At a recent press conference of Lakme Fashion Week Winter/Festive, Soha looked stunning in a light pink lehenga choli.

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The 36-year-old actress teamed the Indian attire with a golden neckpiece and maang tika.

Soha said she was not the right person when it comes to giving fashion tips.

“I am not good at giving fashion tips or advice. I don’t know much about fashion. What I know from fashion bloggers is (that) earthy colours, orange are the colours of this winter season,” Soha said.

“Also fringe is in… I don’t mean hair… but fringe with layering is on (sic). And the 70s trend is back in (in fashion),” the actress added.

Aspiring designers can now get a head start before they’ve even finished elementary school. Zaniac, a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) enrichment-course franchise offering after-school and summer programs, is launching a fashion-design course on August 10 for fourth to eighth graders. 

“The fashion-design course at Zaniac was created to demonstrate that STEM concepts and skills are essential to all future career paths — not just those traditionally associated with the antiquated concept of men in lab coats,” says Sidharth Oberoi, Zaniac’s president and chief academic officer. “We also see this course as an opportunity to empower more girls in STEM, and a necessary step toward closing the gender gap that exists in STEM fields today.” 

Parents will shell out roughly $249 for the six-week fashion-design course, which meets for an hour and a half, once a week, for six weeks — and there’s a student-to-teacher ratio of five to one. Currently, Zaniac has two Utah locations, in Salt Lake City and Park City, plus franchises in Miami and in Greenwich, CT, and has plans to set up shop next month on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Another Connecticut location will open this month, a Boston outpost is expected in the fall, and multiple locations will open in California before the end of the year.

PHOTO: COURTESY ZANIAC.

What’s on the syllabus? “Students learn the intricacies of digital design by creating one-of-a-kind looks using vector graphics in order to create a digital portfolio equivalent to that of a fall or spring collection,” Oberoi says of the course, which also involves color theory and virtual mode boards, plus some requisite show-and-tell of the students’ designs for family and friends. “This course illustrates the need for all students to be well-versed on 21st-century skills like graphic design in order to have successful careers in their futures,” says Oberoi. 

The course lets burgeoning fashion talents start designing during their tween years — but it’s also a way to point girls toward STEM-centric career paths. Some of Zaniac’s other offerings are arguably more boy-centric, including a Lego robotics program and Game-Based Learning: Minecraft; other classes include computer programming and 3D printing. 

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Other places are also working to usher girls into STEM fields through fashion-design courses, albeit through briefer programs. The National Science Foundation has funded a STEM program for the past two years at Cornell University’s Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design called Smart Clothing, Smart Girls. Middle-school girls from local upstate New York 4-H programs were enrolled into the weeklong course, which covered advanced materials, wearable electronics, design technology, and engineering design.

In June, Colorado State University ran a free two-week program, Fashion FUNdamentals, through its Department of Design and Merchandising to teach middle-school girls how to apply STEM concepts to fashion-industry topics. “The program is founded upon the premise that adolescent girls’ passion for fashion can be tapped to nurture girls’ skills in the STEM disciplines and to foster their self-confidence and self-esteem,” according to the Fashion FUNdamentals site. 

We’ll have to give them a couple of years to hit their teen years and then graduate from high school before seeing how STEM-focused fashion training can impact the industry, but our hopes are high.

You know, fashion gets a lot of grief from outsiders. Its fetishisation of skinniness, wealth, aesthetics, sexiness and, yes, youth, are all routinely used as sticks with which to beat it. Only last week Topshop was roundly mocked for using mannequins so skinny they barely made anatomical sense. And this is all perfectly to the right and well and good. Criticise away! Lord knows this column does it often enough.

But here’s the rather uncomfortable truth about fashion: all it actually does is take society’s own desires, own attitudes, and exaggerate them shamelessly. This is certainly not to excuse the fashion industry’s loopiness, stupidity and even occasional amorality. But it does explain why, despite the general consensus that fashion is demented, the industry is enormously successful. This also, I suspect, clarifies why people get so upset by it. If fashion items were sold on promises to make everyone, say, grow a third arm, no one would give a good god damn. Instead, they would look at the adverts featuring three-armed models brandishing wildly expensive handbags (an extra arm so you can carry more £1,500 bags – genius!), shrug, laugh and carry on with their day. They would not campaign against these adverts on social media and newspapers would not run long think pieces about how this three-armed fascism was corrupting the minds of our young.

The reason people – women, mainly, if we’re honest here – get so especially upset by the fashion industry’s obsession with youth and skinniness is because it is echoing that dark, cruel voice that lives in the heads of so many of us, the one that encourages our own self-loathing. For all that people criticise fashion’s obsession with thinness, the fact is it is very rare to find any non-fashion magazine that doesn’t in some way validate this view, by using very slim models or running nonsense articles about “detoxing” and “clean eating”. What the fashion industry does, really, is exploit our own worst thoughts about ourselves. Look, fashion is a billion–dollar industry, and you don’t make a billion dollars by being stupid (although an obvious exception to that rule comes in the form of future US president Donald Trump.)

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Which brings us, eventually, to its attitude towards old people and, in the fashion universe, this means anyone over the age of 40. Never mind the industry’s occasional inclusion of older women in advertising campaigns – such as Céline hiring Joan Didion, say, or Joni Mitchell shilling for Saint Laurent – because this is just about novelty, tokenism, faddishness, even. Having an older woman in a fashion campaign is the new having an overweight pop star appear in your fashion show, which was a very popular schtick about five years ago. It doesn’t mean the fashion industry actually thinks older women, or bigger women, are attractive, a point underscored by the fact that all the models on the runway are still themselves notably young and thin. It just means the industry wants to give itself a little pat on the back for being so deep it can occasionally deal with an older or bigger person (freaks) without actually vomiting all over its quilted Burberry jacket.

Sticking with just the ageism issue for the moment, this is clearly a ridiculous state of affairs. Forget about the moral issue – it’s not even logical. Only a very small percentage of women can afford to buy designer clothes and, of those, an even tinier percentage of them are under 40. And yet, designers still insist on having their clothes modelled by extremely young women – children, in some cases, such as 14-year-old Sofia Mechetner, who appeared in Dior’s couture show last month. Do many 14-year-olds now buy couture? Is this what the kids are doing in between WhatsApping and taking something the media insists on calling “hippy crack”? I’m going to go with “no” here, so quite why a 14-year-old should be held up as the couture ideal by a design house is beyond me. Honestly, they may as well say couture should only be worn by mermaids.

Iris Apfel: ‘People like me because I’m different’

 Read more

Which brings me to Iris Apfel, the 93-year-old fashion icon and designer, who worked for more than 40 years, with her equally impressive husband Carl, now 101, looking after the White House. Apfel is currently celebrated in the lovely documentary, Iris, directed by Albert Maysles, which I honestly could not recommend more strongly. If I had the space, I’d talk about the film and Apfel all day, but the point is that what the film shows most strongly is not just how brilliant fashion looks on older women, and how it’s older women who generally have the best sense of style, because they know themselves so well, but how much they are patronised by the rest of the world, and not just the fashion industry. Repeatedly, we see people talking to Apfel as if she were a child, which is how older people generally are treated by all of us. Yet the fact is that Apfel on a bad day is sharper than pretty much anyone on a good day and this condescension is as ridiculous as the fashion industry treating age like a disease that needs curing. But only criticising fashion for doing this is to be wilfully blind. The scary thing about the fashion industry is that, in a horrible way, it holds up a mirror to the faults within far too many of us.

SUMMER never really arrived this year, but before you cry over your unworn bikini, look on the bright side - you'll get more wear from your autumn wardrobe.

Sales are clearing summer gear out of the shops faster than you can put up a brolly.

And they are making way for the new season collections.

If you are wondering what is going to fall your way for fall - our alphabetical guide makes it as easy as A B C....

A is for Accessories Earrings are the jewellery of the moment: the bolder the better. Our choice: Gold graphic semi circle earrings £7.99, New Look

C is for Capes The great cover-up is perfect for when it's too cold to go jacket-less but not chilly enough for a coat (like now). Our choice: Brown checked hooded cape, £65, Miss Selfridge D is for Dress The easy essential for every day (and night).

E is for Embellishment Jewels on clothes? Yes please.

G is for Glitter On shoes, boots and bags. Perfect to get you in the party mood.F is for Fringe Leave it hanging on bags and boots. Our choice:Black fringed bucket bag, £12, George at Asda

H is for Hat The fedora is the most stylish finishing touch going. Wear one with confidence. Our choice: Fedora, £22, Next

I is for Illusion Karl Lagerfeld brought back real fur on to the catwalk, but we think fake is the way to go (feel cosy but with a clear conscience).

J is for Jeans Denim is still dynamite, whether in jeans, a skirt, dress or jacket. Our choice: Etna skirt, £49, Monsoon

Long sleeve cardi, £35, BHS

K is for Knitwear The perfect windbreaker for between-the-season style. Our choice: Long sleeve cardi, £35, BHS

L is for Leather Choose a skirt in a favourite colour. Our choice: Skirt, £28, Dorothy Perkins

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M is for Maxi Mine the Seventies trend with a maxi dress. Get the look at Mint Velvet, East and Monsoon.

N is for Necklace Pick something substantial, with all the shades of autumn. Our choice:Beaded necklace, £4, Primark

O is for Over-the-knee Panto time comes early with these thigh raisers. Our choice: Grey boots, £32, Matalan

P is for Polo-neck High necks are on the rise - who needs a scarf?

Q is for Quilting Patchwork is not just for the bedroom. Tap into a tapestry moment in jackets, capes and bags.

R is for Red A red dress is the hottest look of the season. Only the brave.

S is for Seventies The time that fashion can't forget. Look out for brown and orange, wide-legs and high necks. And lots of fringing.

T is for Tailoring Look sharp in smart separates and a crisp white shirt.

U is for Universe Will the earth move for you as stars shape us as print of the season.

V is for Velvet Indulge in a spot of luxury with a fabric fit for royalty.

W is for Wellies Don't leave home without a pair.

B by Ted Baker, £25, Debenhams

X is for X-rated Go undercover with something sexy as the nights close in. Our choice: B by Ted Baker, £25, Debenhams

Y is for Yeti Yes, you can embrace the Yeti look in a shaggy gilet (the shaggier, the better).

Z is for Zandra What's not to love about the collaboration between Zandra Rhodes and People Tree? Our choice: Long sleeve top, £42

Six fashion designers will showcase their latest collection in this year’s Pins and Needles Designer Competition taking place Saturday (Aug. 1) at the Boo Cat Club, 812 Union Boulevard.

The group will be competing for a $15,000 prize including $1,000 cash from the St. Louis Fashion Fund and a spot on the rooster of St. Louis Fashion Week in October.

The event will feature Rene Frances, a native of New Hampshire, as well as Saint Louis natives Alexis Cook, Isaiah Jenkins, Ryan Moore, Brittany Rader and Barbara Bultman. The 2014 winner Truly Alvarenga of Pink Elephants Designs based in Nashville will also present her latest collection.

Guests will vote for the T-Mobile People’s Choice Award via Twitter during the competition and the grand prize will be awarded by a panel of fashion experts.

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Model Gabrielle Kniery and radio host Nina Blanco of Now 96.3 will host the evening. Gabrielle Kniery was the first model from St. Louis to make it onto "America’s Next Top Model" reality television competition in 2010. She moved to New York in 2011 to pursue career as a model and actress. Among Kniery's claims to fame is an appearance in Beyonce’s Music Video "Pretty Hurts." 

Tickets: $20 to $40 for advanced tickets available at brainchildevents.com. Prices may increase at the door.

When: Doors open at 6 p.m. for VIP admission and 7 p.m. for general admission. Runway show starts at 8 p.m.