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'What you can get away with is what matters'

Designer Archana Kochhar showed on Day One at the Lakme Fashion Week. Femina Miss India Ankita Shorey was the showstopper for Kochhar's show that was attended by celebs such as Celina Jaitley, Bhagyashree, Parvathy Omanakuttan, Yukta Mookhey and Ayesha Takia among others.

Kochhar told us what she does when a model throws a tantrum and just what she tells people who think her collection is overpriced.

When a model throws a tantrum, you...

Try and resolve it but if she persists I just ask her to listen to me!

Your reaction when they tell you your designs are perhaps overpriced

I explain to them what goes into it and why they are so expensive.

And when they are still not convinced?

Then I just ask them to go to someone else who they think is worthy of their price range

Have you turned down working with a celeb you didn't like?

No I've never done that and I've never really had any issues with any celeb. Except once when a particular celeb had thrown a tantrum and told me that she wouldn't walk the ramp (with me to take a bow at the end of the show).

This was in the initial days of my career. She wasn't happy with the arrangements the organisers had made for her. She wanted a suite and she didn't get one but finally she walked down the ramp with me.

Who do you think is India's best designer?

Manish Malhotra is fabulous. Even Manish Arora is fabulous at what he does as is Rohit Bal.

Who do you think is India's worst designer?

(laughs) I wouldn't know!

Lady Gaga -- fashion disaster or fashion icon?

Definitely a fashion disaster! I think she is too over the top. But hats off to her to be able to pull off what she does. In fact hats off even to Rakhi Sawant to be at the extreme and managing to pull off what she does.

Someone recently told me that it's not what we achieved that matters but what we get away with that does. Because what we can get away with is what symbolises what we achieve. And Lady Gaga can get away with anything!

Your take on the 10-year-old model Thylane Blondeau posing in the recent issue of Vogue magazine?

I feel she's too young to be modeling. There is so much fun in being a young girl and you lose it when you become an adult too soon, too fast.

Then again it's probably in her destiny to get things when she is so young and so she is probably pulled into it.

I have a 12-year-old daughter I have refused to get her on the ramp or for photo shoots because it's not right. There is an age for everything.