Whenever I would think of Meher Castelino, or read or hear her name, I would imagine her at a fashion show.
That was where we met most often, in the days when fashion weeks were events that held meaning and which I attended as a journalist interested in tracking what designers were doing, and in turn sharing trends and new sartorial ideas with my readers.
Meher would be sitting at an aisle seat, often in the third or fourth row, away from the hustle and bustle and flashing phones of the front row journalists. Quietly, with no fuss, she would watch every show, taking notes as required, looking up to smile should someone address her, but otherwise totally engrossed in what she was there for.
Covering fashion weeks
Former Miss India and fashion journalist Meher Castelino (left) and designer Krishna Mehta in Hyderabad in 2007.
| Photo Credit:
Nagara Gopal
For years, through Lakmé Fashion Week and other fashion weeks later, Meher took on the role of in-house reporter, translating fashion into simple, easily understandable sentences that would go out as press notes. It was a bulwark for many a journalist newly minted as a fashion writer: thanks to Meher, she would understand fashion terminology, and trends, and more important, get the gist of what a collection was all about. It would be the first step to many a journalist’s fashion education.
As the week rolled, I would sometimes miss a show or two, as fatigue set in. But not Meher. I know there were times when she was not too well, and the walk to and from the show area to the press room eight or more times in a day was hard on her. But she never grumbled, or complained as some of the younger reporters would (me included); she just went on doing what she had taken on.
Her attitude to work was not the only inspiring thing about Meher. Her attitude to life was a lesson in quiet courage and dignity.
First Femina Miss India
Former Miss India Meher Castelino in Hyderabad in 2003.
| Photo Credit:
P.V. Sivakumar
Perhaps, Meher never forgot that she had been Femina’s very first delegate to the Miss Universe Contest. She would also represent India at the Miss United Nations. It had all happened much before I came to Bombay in 1979 to join the Femina magazine. I was still a school girl in faraway Gauhati (now Guwahati), and we read books, not magazines. But I do remember, much later when discussing the Femina Miss India Contest, Meher telling me that she had been selected in a ‘contest’ — very different from the selection process that came in later. I remember asking her how she felt being sent off for an international beauty contest with no training or backend support. Remember that in 1964, there was only the telephone and the telegram as means of communication in absentia, so a crisis, should it occur, would have to be handled by the teenaged contestant alone. She smiled and said, that’s how it was, adding she wished she had been a delegate much later, when the contestants had better means of preparation at their disposal.
The aura of being a Miss India never left her, though Meher wore it lightly. She was always perfectly turned out; never flashy, always elegant, hair in place, soft jewellery at ears and throat, and more dazzling than that, her ready, happy smile.
She hid the challenges life threw her way, including her husband’s early demise, the fact that she was then a single mother supporting two young children, and who knows what else was swept away behind the smile. She was not one to let anything get her down.
Fashion first, always
(Left) Former Rathi Vinay Jha, director general of FDCI (Fashion Design Council of India) with Meher Castelino, fashion journalist at Abids Lakhotia Institute of Art and Design in Hyderabad in 2007.
| Photo Credit:
Nagara Gopal
She genuinely loved fashion. I remember her telling me, at Femina, that she was taking designers to Igedo (in Germany), for a fashion exposition. At that time, I did not know much about fashion beyond a love for clothes, but as I read her write-ups in the newspapers, I realised she had been instrumental in Indian designers showcasing their work at international expositions. I remember asking the late Wendell Rodricks, one of the designers who had travelled with her to write about his experiences. After initial hesitation, Wendell was persuaded enough to write his first article. He went on to become a fashion columnist for Femina, and I learnt valuable lessons on fashion by editing his essays. Looking back, I think if it were not for Meher, neither would have happened.
She had, I realised, set up an award for Innovative Garment Construction, given in her name at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Mumbai, to a promising student. It told me how deep her involvement with fashion ran.
Last month, reading the social media posts eulogising her, I realise that she was also an advisor to many fashion houses, and wrote two more books besides the one titled Fashion Musings (2020) she had gifted me.
The world we are in now, where every moment of the day is reported on Instagram, the food we eat, the dishes we cook, the clothes we wear, the events we attend and the travelling we undertake, Meher might be easily forgotten by the very fact of her absence on these websites.
But to me, she is an example of someone who did what she loved, spreading her skills quietly across the world of fashion, and contributing significantly to it.
Hers was an impeccable life, lived with grace and dignity.
The writer is a Mumbai-based editor and author.
Published – January 08, 2026 12:45 pm IST