With fame comes great responsibility, and for an A-lister like Deepika Padukone, that responsibility is a magazine cover published in the afterglow of being named as one of the awardees of the Time100 Impact Awards and becoming the first Indian brand ambassador of Louis Vuitton (LV) fashion house. The 36-year-old has been photographed by London-based Vivek Vadoliya for this month’s cover of Vogue India magazine, and the customary brouhaha on social media suggests that the crowd is unimpressed. What should have been a glossy portrait of a star buffed to superhuman levels of glamour has turned into a “basic” discussion on: “She should have at least tied those shoelaces”, as one Instagram user commented.

Welcome to a place where beautiful people push their agency in a raffish loose-limbed demeanour, flaunting thick white sports socks while forgetting to tie their shoelaces. Padukone wants you to know that “this is my vibe”. She is simply arguing for more open-mindedness, and in that, claiming her womanhood, her right to present herself in any way she chooses. “Contrary to the glamorous perfection that audiences have to come to expect in the portrayal of film stars, Padukone is an easy-going, self-proclaimed tomboy at heart—a spirit we wanted to capture through this uncontrived cover shoot,” Megha Kapoor, the magazine’s editor, writes in the May issue.