The article is a study of correlation between stardom and high fashion (haute couture) in postliberalized India. Apart from its well-documented implications on the Indian economy, the phenomenon of liberalization also impacted the way Hindi film stars became vehicles for international brands, on and off screen. My aim is to understand the iconography of actor Sonam Kapoor who is the face of a global brand of cosmetics, and also a fashion icon of Hindi cinema, a perfect embodiment of the aspirations of the upwardly mobile, urban youth. The article conflates theories of fashion, star iconography and celebrity culture. It predominantly tests Richard Dyer's contention, 'Star images are always extensive, multimedia, intertextual' (Heavenly Bodies, 2011, 3); Stella Bruzzi's conclusion that 'where the fashionable, too beautiful woman is concerned the issues of identity and identification become problematized, as the focus has shifted away from the woman herself to the art and spectacle of her clothes' (Undressing Cinema, 1997, 18); and Pamela Church Gibson's assertion in her reading of celebrity and stardom as, 'cinema itself is changing swiftly' (Fashion and Celebrity Culture, 2012, 67). Although fashion can be investigated from several angles (gender, consumerism, race/ethnicity, ideology, power relations), my concern is to understand high fashion as an identity-forming project, and to explain how in the postliberalized scenario stars fashion their celebrity through international couture. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.